Rating: 5/10 – a young Sebastian Valmont (Dunne) transfers to a new school and encounters the Machiavellian Kathryn Merteuil (Adams), leading to a rivalry that will last the rest of their lives; a prequel to Kumble’s PYT version of Dangerous Liaisons, Cruel Intentions 2 is enjoyable on a guilty pleasure level, and is full of moments where the viewer will ask themselves, Did they just do/say that?, but it’s still not enough to hide the cracks in the narrative or the paucity of some of the performances.

Rating: 3/10 – when a disaffected Ukrainian straps a bomb to a young boy and then dies before revealing the boy’s whereabouts, it’s up to maverick cop Ray Fitzpatrick (Ziggler) to save the day – and whether his bosses like it or not; another WWE DTV movie that abandons crdibility from the word go – watch out for Fitzpatrick’s one-man storming of a Russian consulate – Countdown is hard-going rubbish that only has Cliff Hokanson’s crisp cinematography to recommend it.

Rating: 4/10 – following the tragic death of his wife, top chef Rob (Scott) loses his way until he takes over a small village pub, and with the help of food critic Kate (Forlani), attempts to regain the flair and the passion that made him such a good chef; a lightweight romantic comedy that breezes through its own running time as nonchalantly as possible, Love’s Kitchen is, in cooking terms, like a soufflé that hasn’t risen: still edible but nowhere near as enjoyable if it had turned out as planned.

The Naked Witch (1964) / D: Larry Buchanan, Claude Alexander / 59m

Cast: Jo Maryman, Robert Short, Libby Hall

Rating: 2/10 – a student (Short) of German folklore arrives in a small Texas town and unwittingly awakens the ghost of a witch (Hall) bent on revenge on the descendants of those who put her death three hundred years before; Buchanan’s first low-budget exploitation movie is low on incident and big on padding – check out the ten-minute prologue – but does earn a point for a strange, hypnotic vibe that develops once the witch is resurrected.

Rating: 6/10 – when a man (Anderson) is caught after twelve years on the run from a murder trial, his public defender (Young) investigates the original crime, and learns enough to believe that the man is probably innocent; a minor noir, Hunt the Man Down has plenty of double dealings in a plot that doesn’t always make sense but is enjoyable enough on its own terms.

Rating: 7/10 – a group of teenagers aiming to start a band find an ally in a local choir master (More), but along the way have to contend with internal rivalries and the problems inherent in growing up; as much an historical record of the times – Bristol, England in the early Sixties – Some People features a slew of raw performances but is only occasionally as dramatic as the story requires, leaving the viewer to wonder what all the fuss is about.

Rating: 5/10 – when one of his best friends, Evan (Miller), ruins his wedding day, Nardo (Middleditch), follows his fianceé to Mexico in order to win her back, while Evan and his other best friend, Jason (Pally), end up heading across the border as well to help him out after he’s carjacked; a passable comedy that tries too hard one moment and then hits the comedic nail on the head the next, Search Party isn’t particularly memorable but if you’re in the mood for an easy watch, this will definitely do the trick.

Comedians and Netflix – a good combination? After Adam Sandler’s The Ridiculous 6 (2015), we now have Ricky Gervais’ Special Correspondents, a movie so leaden and uninspired it makes Sandler’s movie look like a masterpiece (okay, that may be taking it a bit too far). A remake of the French movie Envoyés très spéciaux (2009), this transplants the original’s Paris-Iraq locations for New York-Ecuador, and in the process leaves out the humour that would have made it halfway watchable.

Gervais’ decision to make this movie serves only to highlight his inability to write, act and direct a full-length movie and show consistency in any one department. As the meek, self-negating Ian Finch, a sound engineer for a New York-based radio station, Gervais plays yet another sad-sack loser with zero confidence and a view of himself as a complete nobody. Gervais has played this character, and variations of it, several times now, and it’s as tired as the script he’s put together and somehow managed to get financing for. (If you really want to see just how bad an actor Gervais can be, check out the party scene early on, where it’s just him and Vera Farmiga; see how many grimaces and facial expressions you can spot that are exact replicas of the ones he uses when hosting the Golden Globe Awards… or playing David Brent in The Office.)

Gervais’ painful attempts at acting aside, it’s his script that deserves the most criticism, ranging as it does from occasionally interesting to crudely simplistic. The basic story – radio journalist and his sound man fake reports from war-torn Ecuador – is lifted wholesale from the French original, and even though that movie wasn’t the most well received movie ever, it’s still better than the ponderous, laugh-free adaptation that Gervais gives us here. Yes, it has a predictable plot; yes, it has characters who are two-dimensional at best; and yes, you couldn’t care about any of them even if your life depended on it, but if after all that it was funny, really laugh-out-loud funny, then it could have been forgiven for all those things. But although Gervais has made room for moments that are clearly meant to be funny, in reality they aren’t, and the movie lurches from one almost-humorous scene to another with all the grace of a punch-drunk boxer fighting his reflection.

It doesn’t help that, Kelly Macdonald’s sweet-on-Ian character, Claire Maddox aside, the other characters are mostly unlikeable, from radio journalist Frank Bonneville (Bana) whose grandstanding and willingness to get the story no matter what makes him look and sound arrogant and unfeeling, to Ian’s wife, Eleanor (Farmiga), a listless shrew who only comes to self-aggrandising life when her husband appears to have been kidnapped by rebel forces. Farmiga, who has the misfortune of wearing one of recent cinema’s most unflattering wigs, does what she can with the role but there’s no subtlety in a part that calls for simpering insincerity at every other turn, and bald-faced self-promotion in between. The same goes for Bana, a more than capable actor here reduced to the role of awkward straight man to Gervais, and who has to spend a lot of screen time waiting for Gervais to deliver the comedic goods (so he gets to wait around a lot).

In support, Pollak is the radio boss who cares about the legality of a story’s procurement one minute, but is willing to capitalise on the possibility of Frank and Ian being killed the next, while Castillo and Ferrara are the Latin couple, Domingo and Brigida, who help Frank and Ian fabricate their reports. What few laughs there are in the movie are delivered by the couple, playing a couple of innocents who haven’t quite grasped their roles in Frank and Ian’s deception. And in what must have taken him a whole morning to film, Bratt turns up as Frank’s arch-nemesis, TV journalist John Baker, who co-opts one of Frank’s broadcasts as if he knew all about the content all along (Baker is probably meant to provide an element of satire, but instead he comes across as an easy target for Gervais’ mistrust of the Press).

Of course, events dictate that Frank and Ian have to go to Ecuador so that they can “return” to New York and avoid losing their jobs and ending up in jail. It’s during this period in the movie that Gervais’ deficiencies as a director show themselves more clearly than elsewhere. Even with the aid of experienced DoP Terry Stacey, Gervais still manages to present the viewer with shots and scenes that are poorly framed, and there’s a scene with Gervais and Bana where Frank reveals a secret that is so badly assembled it feels like rehearsal footage has somehow made its way permanently into the final movie.

As mentioned when discussing the trailer, Gervais track record on the big screen has not exactly been luminous, but here he’s come up with a project that will likely mean it will be a long time before he’s asked to write, direct and star in a movie of his own choosing once again. If Gervais has an aptitude for anything it’s for observational comedy, and Special Correspondents doesn’t fit that mold, which makes it even harder to understand why he chose to take it on in the first place.

Rating: 3/10 – dire and acutely unfunny, Special Correspondents is yet another English-language remake that shouldn’t have happened (and how many more of those will we see this year?), and shouldn’t have to be watched; Gervais never gets to grips with what his movie is about, or where the laughs should go, leaving the viewer resigned to the idea (from very early on) that this is a movie that has stalled before it’s even started.

There were two movies released in 2015 with the title Mr. Right… and this isn’t the other one (which, to clarify, stars Columbus Short and Erica Tazel, and doesn’t have a screenplay by Max Landis). This one is definitely the wackier of the two, a broad mix of comedy, action and romance that exists in the same universe as American Ultra (2015), and which allows Sam Rockwell to do what he does best and ooze more charm than any leading man has a right to.

The set up is a simple one. Martha (Kendrick) dumps her boyfriend when she finds out he’s seeing someone else. Depressed and turning to alcohol for comfort she lacks the confidence to believe that she’ll ever find that elusive Mr. Right. But a chance encounter in a convenience store leads to her going on an impulsive date with a guy (Rockwell) whose name she doesn’t even find out (and not until much later). Their relationship soon blossoms into a romance that is surprising to both of them, even when the guy makes apparently flippant remarks about killing people. It’s only when Martha actually sees him kill someone that she returns to believing there isn’t one man on the planet who’s right for her.

Now the guy is a hitman (as you may have suspected). But he’s kind of reformed. He still kills people, but in a neat moral turnaround, he kills the ones who hire him (and tells them that murder is wrong before he does). Martha’s guy is also being tracked by his former mentor, Hopper (Roth), who is pretending to be an FBI agent. Hopper’s bosses want Martha’s guy dead, but they may have to wait in line, as the man Martha sees him kill is connected to a Mafia family, and they now want him dead as well. With her new beau being shot at and attacked by what appears to be all-comers, Martha has a decision to make: does she walk away and settle for someone half as interesting and special, or does she take a chance on love?

(Well, we all know the answer to that one, don’t we?)

There are two reasons to watch Mr. Right, and they’re the script by Max Landis, and the performance by Sam Rockwell. Landis is making quite the reputation for himself, and with scripts for this, American Ultra, Chronicle (2012) and errr… Victor Frankenstein (2015) under his belt, he’s certainly a writer to watch, and while the basic conceit of a hitman who kills the people who hire him is a novel one, where Landis scores highly is with the romantic portions of the movie. As Rockwell’s off-centre hitman and Kendrick’s semi-doofus pet store worker get to know each other and fall hopelessly in love, Landis provides both actors with the kind of snappy, winning dialogue that makes each scene they share a pleasure to watch. Where else are you going to find lines such as, “That’s a lot of condoms. You’ve got enough to choke a goat”, or “And Martha Agatha, it’s just a double menopause punch in the… it’s brutal”?

With Landis making the most of the romantic aspect of the movie, and creating such a winning relationship, it’s almost a shame that the murderous actions of Roth’s determined ex-colleague and Ransone’s duplicitous Mafia scion, Von, have to take over for the obligatory action-packed second half. It’s a stroke of genius then that Landis introduces the character of Steve (RZA), ostensibly a disposable gun for hire who proves to be a match for Mr. Right and earns his respect. It’s a funny, unexpected role, and RZA plays it perfectly. But this is Rockwell’s movie, and as the titular anti-hero he brings his A game, infusing his character with a joie de vivre that is both infectious and charming in equal measure. He brings so much to the role of Mr. Right that it’s almost impossible to keep up with everything he’s doing in any given scene. It’s the kind of portrayal that won’t win any awards but is breathtaking in its effortless simplicity – and completely makes up for his sleepwalking turn in Poltergeist (2015).

With Rockwell firing on all cylinders and fully engaged with the material, it’s good to see Kendrick having fun as well as Martha. It’s not a role that’s any kind of a stretch for her, but she’s funny and adorable, and a great foil for Rockwell (and despite the obvious difference in their ages). Roth shows off his comic chops as well, imbuing Hopper with a studied insouciance that pays dividends throughout (look out for an early scene as he accurately predicts the fates of a group of guns for hire as they try to take down Mr. Right in a hotel). Less satisfactory however are the performances of Ransone and Eklund as the Mafia heavyweights who pick the wrong assassin to off their in-charge brother (Mount). Whenever they’re on screen, caricature and enforced stupidity aren’t far away, and their characters are almost cartoon-like. It’s hard to tell if the root cause is Landis’s screenplay, Cabezas’ direction, or the actors’ performances. Maybe it’s a combination of all three, but whatever the reason, they’re the movie’s only real disappointment.

In the end, Mr. Right is lightweight, enjoyable stuff that doesn’t require too much thought but still manages to entertain consistently and with a fair degree of brio. Cabezas’ last outing was the less than stellar Rage (2014) with Nicolas Cage, and like Rockwell with Poltergeist, he’s on better form here, showing a confidence in his handling of what is effectively a genre mash-up that yields sterling results, and stops the movie from straying in any one direction at the expense of the others. He’s ably supported by DoP Daniel Aranyó, who finds some unusual angles to make the action sequences more invigorating, and an exuberant score by Aaron Zigman.

Rating: 8/10 – there’s so much to enjoy in Mr. Right that it’s tempting to watch it again straight after seeing it for the first time; with an on-form turn from Rockwell and a great script by Landis, the movie is a minor outing that rewards above its weight and will keep you smiling throughout, even when it’s being patently absurd.

Minnesota, 1990. Farmer John Gray (Dencik) confesses to molesting his seventeen year old daughter, Angela (Watson) – but there’s a catch: even though Angela has made an accusation, Gray can’t remember doing anything of the sort, and is confessing purely because Angela has never lied to him, so in his mind it must be true. Detective Bruce Kenner (Hawke) is assigned to the case, and while Gray languishes in prison awaiting a trial date, he begins to look into the matter. It’s not long though before Kenner begins to find that the case isn’t as straightforward as his boss, Chief Cleveland (O”Neill), would like.

With the help of Professor Kenneth Raines (Thewlis), Kenner learns through Raines’ use of regression therapy techniques that Gray wasn’t alone when his abuse of Angela was supposed to have happened. When the other person present is revealed to be a fellow police officer, George Nesbitt (Ashmore), that revelation opens up another can of worms altogether: that Nesbitt, along with an unwitting Gray, are members of a satanic cult. With the rest of the police force treating the idea of a satanic cult as a joke, and Gray’s family proving resentful of Kenner’s investigation, it’s not until he gets to meet Angela that Kenner begins to believe that there might actually be something in what her father has remembered.

Kenner remains sceptical but insists on keeping an open mind, and begins looking into the possibility that a cult is operating in the local area. A second meeting with Angela has him believing more and more, and even more so when he begins to have strange dreams, some where he appears to be involved in the blood sacrifice of a newborn baby (and which echoes what Angela has told him of her own experiences). Kenner becomes paranoid, and his relationships with those around him begin to deteriorate. When Nesbitt is released for lack of evidence, Kenner believes he has to risk everything in order to keep Angela safe, but if the cult is for real, will he be able to?

The period setting of Regression is deliberate. In the US in 1980, a book was published called Michelle Remembers, and it was written by Michelle Smith and her future husband Lawrence Pazder (who was then her psychiatrist). In it, Smith recounted – through Pazder’s use of hypnotherapy – alleged memories of what became known as Ritual Satanic Abuse (RSA). These memories related to abuse supposed to have been perpetrated by Michelle’s mother in the mid-Fifties when Michelle was five. The book proved to be a starting point for allegations of widespread satanic activity within the US (and further afield), and although skepticism of Smith and Pazder’s book was equally widespread, as the Eighties progressed, the idea of satanic cults prospered, and the book, and Pazder’s “expertise” on the subject, were used as a guide for prosecutors preparing cases against individuals accused of satanic practices.

Set against the backdrop of this developing fear and paranoia, Regression touches on several attendant topics – the (mis)use of regressive therapy, the impact of such allegations on closed communities, individual feelings of guilt and/or responsibility, the ease with which unsubstantiated rumour becomes accepted fact – but it does so in such an awkward, hamfisted way that any dramatic emphasis is reduced by the way in which Amenábar’s script fails to follow through on these topics. The end result is a movie that has a lot going on but little of it that makes consistent sense.

Worrying aspects crop up almost from the start, with a very clumsily inserted “clue” that Nesbitt is more involved than is initially apparent, and this is followed by the way in which Detective Kenner commits himself so unreservedly, leaving the viewer to wonder just what it is that drives him (a question the movie avoids answering). Raines’ involvement so soon into the investigation, and the way in which he’s allowed to take the lead on so many interviews is concerning in terms of likelihood (it doesn’t help that Raines is often unnecessarily aggressive as well), and a sequence where Kenner “sees” the events described to him by Angela is another cause for concern, as it comes across as a stylistic exercise rather than a character trait.

Kenner is the viewer’s guide through the events of the movie but he proves an unreliable guide, prone to making schoolboy errors in terms of the investigation, and behaving unprofessionally with Angela. The movie doesn’t give any real reason for the waywardness of his behaviour, and as the mystery deepens his growing paranoia (and belief) that the satanic cult is real causes him to behave so irrationally that the extent of it becomes unconvincing. With Gray already acting strangely, and with most of the local community seemingly in thrall to the cult that no one can identify, Amenábar’s decision to have Kenner become a victim as well becomes exasperating rather than effective in terms of the drama.

Viewers should be able to determine the movie’s outcome without too much trouble, but once they do, and once the movie reaches that point, the whole thing collapses in on itself and the last fifteen minutes feel like a compromise instead of a conclusion decided on from the start. Amenábar does his best, but even with the support of Hawke and Watson, he doesn’t appear to be fully in control of his own narrative or where it’s going. Scenes feel divorced from each other, and too often, characters act oddly because the script needs them to.

The performances are committed at least, with Hawke giving his all in yet another not-fully-realised horror thriller, and Watson putting Hermione Granger firmly behind her as the victim(?) whose safety becomes Kenner’s primary concern. Thewlis and his character are abandoned by Amenábar two thirds of the way through, while the rest of the supporting cast (save Dencik) do what they can in respect of filling in the blanks. In the end, Regression is a movie where the characters exist to service the plot, and at no point do any of them feel organic, leaving the cast to try and work out what’s the best approach for each one. It leads to a clash of acting styles in some scenes, and a lack of cohesion in others. Amenábar at least keeps things visually interesting, albeit in a dour, dark-hued way, and the sequences of satanic worship and sacrifice are well shot and edited together, but all in all this needed a tighter script and a better ending to be anywhere near successful.

Rating: 5/10 – though Regression is based around real events that occurred over a period of time, it never really offers a cohesive or credible story to match its general assumptions about what was happening at the time; not as scary or effective as it would like to be, the movie winds up playing it safe instead of giving the viewer any real food for thought.

Netflix adds another movie to its distribution roster with the latest from Ricky Gervais, a satirical look at at a journalist (played by Eric Bana) and his sound man (Gervais) who find themselves covering a civil war in Ecuador… from the safety of an apartment in New York. Adapted by Gervais from the 2009 French comedy Envoyés très spéciaux, the movie had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and will be released worldwide on 29 April, but from the trailer it’s hard to tell if the movie is going to be as funny or as satirical as Gervais intended, and largely because the trailer’s pretty much a laugh-free zone. Gervais’s big screen projects haven’t exactly set the box office on fire in the past, and advance word isn’t very positive, so it’s likely that Special Correspondents will disappear just as “effectively” as Bana and Gervais’ characters do in the movie.

The true story of Ray Kroc’s acquistion of the McDonalds chain over the course of the late Fifties/early Sixties, The Founder looks to be a pull-no-punches examination of how Kroc outmanoeuvred the McDonald brothers (played by Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch), and gained control of what has become one of the world’s largest and most successful franchises. As Kroc, Michael Keaton has landed yet another role likely to reward him with a slew of awards nominations, while the recreation of the period looks to be spot on. This has the potential to be an unexpected hit at the box office, partly due to the nostalgia on offer, and partly because in the current US social and political climate, a tale of how the American dream was usurped and bent to someone else’s needs seems all too relevant.

Tough and moody, with a brutal streak running through it a mile wide, Mel Gibson’s latest foray in front of the cameras sees him playing an ex-con who’s forced to protect his estranged daughter (played by Erin Moriarty) from the drug dealers bent on killing her. Blood Father has an exploitation movie vibe to it, allied to strong visuals, as well as a pleasing sense that Gibson is playing a role more attuned to his work in the first two Lethal Weapon movies rather than the cartoon-oriented variations of the third and fourth. With an intriguing supporting cast on board – William H. Macy, Diego Luna, Elisabeth Röhm, Dale Dickey – this latest from the director of Mesrine Parts 1 & 2 (2008) could be another redeeming feature in Gibson’s post-meltdown career.

The poster for Eye in the Sky correctly identifies the range of personnel that are involved in its story of a military operation to capture several high profile terrorists from a property in Nairobi, Kenya. The commander is Colonel Katherine Powell (Mirren), the drone pilot is Lieutenant Steve Watts (Paul), and the terrorist is radicalised British woman Susan Danford (King). But the range doesn’t end there. There’s also military facilitator Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Rickman) overseeing things from a briefing room in London’s Whitehall, a target recognition analyst, Lucy Galvez (Engelbrecht), based in Hawaii, and the Kenyan military forces, led by Major Moses Owiti (Kunene), and also in Nairobi. Throw in the British Foreign Secretary, James Willett (Glen), who’s in Singapore, and the American Secretary of State, Ken Stanitzke (O’Keefe), who’s on a trip to Beijing, and you have a movie that relentlessly globe trots in its efforts to up the tension as the original mission to capture Danford and her terrorist allies mutates unavoidably into a strike mission.

The set up is a simple one: intel puts Danford, a member of terrorist organisation Al-Shabaab, her husband, and two recently radicalised young men at a house in Nairobi. Powell’s job is to coordinate the various strands of a US/UK/Kenyan operation to capture them. But things become more complicated when the intended targets move to another Nairobi location, one that’s heavily fortified by Somalian militia. With the drone flying twenty-three thousand feet above the action and unable to see inside the building the terrorists have moved to, the decision is made to send in an FPV, operated remotely by Jama (Abdi), a Somalian member of the Kenyan military forces. With the targets inside the building confirmed, the mission can go ahead, but then the FPV sees something no one was expecting: a room full of explosives and two suicide bomb vests. Now the reason for the terrorist meeting becomes clear: the two young men have been chosen to commit further terrorist outrages.

For Powell it’s an open and shut case. With two separate terrorist acts being prepared, the mission has to change, and the drone used to send a Hellfire missile into the building. But Powell finds that getting permission to change the operation’s parameters is harder than she thought. Benson, overseeing things with members of the British government, explains the need for a kill strike but no one wants to make a decision without it being referred to someone further up the chain of command. And when a young girl, Alia (Takow), arrives outside the compound to sell bread, the moral and political issues surrounding collateral damage come into play – and the terrorists continue their plans.

Make no mistake, Eye in the Sky is a taut, gripping thriller that throws in enough twists and turns to keep viewers on the edge of their seat (or holding their breath) from the moment the terrorists’ plan becomes evident and the politicians start backing away from making a decision that involves the potential death of a young girl. With ethical and moral considerations being thrown around in support of both pushing ahead and stepping down, Guy Hibbert’s script treads a fine line between political expediency and military necessity, and in doing so, provides audiences with a tense, anxious experience that is both intelligently handled and uncomfortably topical.

In doing so though it paints a portrait of UK politicians as indecisive and media-cowed, afraid of making tough decisions unless they’re authorised by someone nearer the top of the political food chain than they are (this is why the UK Foreign Secretary and the US Secretary of State become involved). It’s a little unnerving to see these characters vacillate so much in the face of an established threat, and some viewers may well find themselves feeling frustrated by their behaviour to the point of wishing they were the victims of the drone strike instead. But it still makes for compelling viewing as each round of political manoeuvring fails to solve the problem on the ground, namely, how can the little girl be moved on, and how can any collateral damage be minimised to an acceptable level.

The answers to both these dilemmas are not as cut and dried as some viewers might expect. An attempt to buy up the girl’s bread goes awry, and the level of collateral damage varies depending on where the missile strike hits, but in any case it’s obvious the girl will suffer some form of injury. Knowing this, the back and forth between Powell and the politicians Benson has to deal with becomes an arduous, unpleasant, exasperating stretch of the movie’s running time, and despite feeling contrived for the most part, still maintains the tension needed to keep viewers glued to the screen.

Away from the Brits, Watts’s increasing unhappiness at the way things are developing leads to a further delay in proceedings, but the movie presents this as a positive turn of events, with the plucky Yank standing up to the formidable British Colonel. Whether this would happen in “real life” is debatable – Watts and his co-pilot, Carrie Gershon (Fox) appear far too emotionally affected to be entirely credible – but as another example of the script’s ability to make things as uncomfortable for the audience as possible it also gives the audience a way in in terms of how upsetting this must really be for two characters who will be expected to be back on duty twelve hours later. Alternatively, Powell and Benson’s feelings are best summed up by Benson’s assertion, “Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war.”

With drone strikes becoming an increasingly hot topic in terms of modern warfare against terrorists, the movie is both timely and uncompromising. It paints a convincing portrait of the hardware used and the complicity that comes with it, and if the movie ultimately comes down on the side of using it for the greater good – the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few – then it’s still a convincingly made argument. And thanks to a very well chosen cast, both sides of that argument are given due attention, with Mirren and Rickman giving standout performances, while being ably supported by the likes of Abdi, Northam and Ceesay. In coordinating all this, Hood makes up for Ender’s Game (2013) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) by keeping things deadly serious throughout, and with the help of regular editor Megan Gill, creates a febrile atmosphere for the mission to exist in.

Rating: 8/10 – a few narrative niggles aside, Eye in the Sky is a provocative, unnerving cinematic experience that never once falters in its intention to keep viewers on the edge of their seats; tense and dramatic, the movie shines a light on the kind of ethical and moral dilemmas that only a select few have to deal with, and reinforces the notion that warfare, whether modern or ancient, is not for the faint of heart.

Mousy secretary Dany (Mavor) works for businessman Michel Caravaille (Biolay). She has undeveloped fantasies about their relationship becoming something more than just employer and employee, but Michel is clearly uninterested. When he tells her he needs a report typed up urgently, she tells him it will take her all night. As he needs it first thing in the morning he tells her she can do the work at his home. After a quick stop at her home for some things, they arrive at Michel’s home where she is given a room to work in, and meets his wife, Anita (Martin).

The next day, and with the report completed, Michel asks Dany to drive himself and Anita to the airport, and then take the car, a magnificent Thunderbird, back to his home. Dany drops them off but decides that, with the weekend ahead of her, no one will know if she drives the car out to the coast (she’s never seen the sea), and as long as she gets the car back before Michel and Anita return. But as she makes her way through the French countryside, Dany finds herself meeting people who say they’ve seen, and talked to her, earlier on. This angers Dany, especially when the staff at a gas station are more concerned with her having been there before than in paying credence to the attack that was made on her in the toilets, and despite her receiving an injury that she didn’t have “before”.

At a hotel Dany finds again that she’s recognised by the staff. She also meets an Italian who calls himself Georges (Germano). Dany allows herself to be seduced by Georges, but the next day she finds he has stolen the Thunderbird. Desperate to get the car back she enlists the aid of a truck driver and his friends on the CB network to find out where Georges has got to. But when she tracks him down to a seaside town, events take an even more disturbing turn, and Dany discovers that she’s now connected to a murder.

Adapted from the novel by Sébastien Japrisot, Joann Sfar’s third feature is a twisty, Gallic thriller that looks cool, plays it cool, but becomes quite heated in the last quarter of an hour, as its tricksy, mysterious narrative unravels thanks to one massive mistake made early on in the movie’s construction. It’s not hard to work out what’s happening, or who’s responsible, but the why is kept under wraps until quite near the end. By the time all is revealed though, Dany’s journey from subdued, submissive secretary to not quite defenceless stooge-in-the-making has taken one too many “unexpected” turns for it all to work properly or credibly.

Which is a shame, as for much of its running time, The Lady in the Car With Glasses and a Gun is an entertaining mystery movie, sometimes feeling a little surreal, sometimes a little like experiencing a mild hallucinogen, but always keeping the audience a little off-kilter. This helps the viewer identify more closely with Dany and her escalating problems, as the script by Patrick Godeau and Gilles Marchand does its best to retain a semblance of “normality” while putting its heroine through the emotional wringer. Each successive encounter with someone who’s already met her leaves Dany questioning what’s going on but this isn’t some Twilight Zone fantasy that she’s experiencing; instead it’s a much more sinister world she finds herself dealing with, and as the script keeps Dany on the back foot, it strives to keep the viewer in suspense at the same time.

That it doesn’t fully succeed is due to the somewhat generic nature of the mystery itself. It’s unlikely that Dany is going mad, and to be fair, the movie doesn’t take that tack, but in putting her in situations where things aren’t as clearcut or as straightforward as they should be, Sfar and the screenwriters portray a secondary world where nothing is obvious, and expectations should be abandoned. Once Dany veers off the main road back to Michel’s home and heads for the seaside, it’s almost as if she’s entered some kind of alternate reality, a dream world perhaps, and the movie tries hard to maintain that illusion for as long as possible. And until Dany meets Georges, it succeeds quite well in creating that kind of atmosphere.

In a lot of mystery thrillers, the introduction of a man who is sympathetic to the heroine’s troubles, and wants to help out, usually leads to a romance between them that’s borne out of tackling those troubles. And at first it seems as if Georges is there to fulfill that role, but even though they end up in bed together, the audience will already know that Georges isn’t to be trusted (Germano’s performance practically screams “con man”). By removing this small amount of hope, the audience begins to understand that this movie may be more nihilistic than they expected. And as Dany gets further and further into trouble, so it proves.

Sfar is a competent director, certainly able to elicit strong performances from his cast – Mavor, perhaps best known as Mini from the TV series Skins (2011-12) is very good indeed as Dany – but the movie’s tone is wayward, and the ending feels rushed, as if the movie had to come in at a certain running time and a less hurried denouement would have ruined things. He’s also never quite sure as a director with where to place the camera, leaving the movie looking and feeling a little awkward in its presentation of certain scenes, such as Dany’s romantic fantasies, and when he feels the need to vary the camera angles when Dany’s in the car. And he fumbles the revelation of what’s been happening (and why), leaving the viewer unsure if he/she heard right, or if there’s something more to be added. As it is, the revelation is unnecessarily complicated, and relies too much on coincidence to work effectively, a problem Sfar doesn’t have the experience to solve.

But as already mentioned, the movie does look cool, thanks to Manuel Dacosse’s sterling cinematography. The movie has an autumnal, melancholy feel to it that Dacosse highlights through the use of some unfussy yet effective lighting, and a subdued colour palette. And it’s a movie that gets progressively darker in terms of light and shade as Dany’s problems worsen. This makes the movie intriguing to watch on a visual level, and helps make up for some of the failings elsewhere. But all in all, it’s a movie where style and substance aren’t on an equal footing.

Rating: 6/10 – while there’s much to admire in The Lady in the Car With Glasses and a Gun, it’s narrative isn’t rewarding enough to overcome the pitfalls it finds itself creating; Mavor has the look of a troubled innocent, and is the glue that holds the movie together, but her performance alone isn’t enough to overcome the movie’s various narrative problems.

Overheard at a cinema in Boise, Idaho (or somewhere like that – you get the idea):

Assistant: Hi, how can I help you today?

Customer: Hi. I’d like two tickets for Ride Along 2, please.

Assistant: Two tickets? Why?

Customer: I’m sorry?

Assistant: Why do you want two tickets? Don’t you like the person you’ve come with?

Customer: I beg your pardon.

Assistant: Look, it’s no skin off my nose, but wouldn’t you rather see something else? Like Norm of the North perhaps?

Customer: No, we’d like to see Ride Along 2. We like Kevin Hart. He’s funny.

Assistant: He is, yes. But unfortunately the movie isn’t.

Customer: Well, that’s your opinion. Now, can I have two tickets to see Ride Along 2? Please.

Assistant: Well, okay, I guess you’re old enough to know what you’re doing.

Customer: You know, you’re being very rude. I don’t think I’ve ever been so insulted before.

Assistant: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? Wait until you’ve seen the movie, then decide, huh?

Rating: 3/10 – a dire sequel that recreates several of the first movie’s so-called “funniest moments”, Ride Along 2 proves that recycling isn’t as good for the environment (and particularly a cinema screen) as we’ve all been told; formulaic in the extreme, and low on real laughs, this is the kind of movie that studios make when they can’t think of anything that’s better/more original/more entertaining to make.

When you’re watching The Trust, the latest no-brainer, substance-lite thriller starring Nicolas Cage, spare a thought for Jerry Lewis (yes, the Jerry Lewis). Urged by Cage to appear as his on-screen dad, Lewis appears in three scenes and amasses roughly a minute of screen time. What, you may be asking, was the point? In fairness, Lewis is ninety, so he may have worked to his potential, but it’s the kind of unkind cameo that will either have audiences, a) wondering if it’s really him, or b) asking themselves, isn’t he dead? The answers (already established) are yes it is, and no he’s not. The better question is, was he so bored that he didn’t have something, anything, better to do?

As it turns out, Lewis gets off lightly, sharing his scenes with Cage and Wood, while the two lead actors get to spar with each other for almost the rest of the movie. Cage is Jim Stone, an evidence technician for the Las Vegas Police Department, stifled by his bosses lack of vision when it comes to his ideas for gathering evidence more efficiently, and treated like a nuisance caller who makes the mistake of giving his name every time. Also working as an evidence technician for the LVPD is Wood’s character, David Waters. Waters is good at his job but he’s too fond of a joke, and smoking weed, to be as uptight as Stone; he’s coasting along, none too ambitious but clearly lacking the wherewithal to make his life better.

At an auction of property seized by the LVPD, Stone is shown one clever way that drugs have been transported. Looking through the paperwork that went with the bust, Stone spots an anomaly: the guy who was caught was a low-level criminal and yet his $200,000 bail was paid quickly and without fuss. Wondering why someone so inconsequential would have that kind of support, Stone begins to follow him to see who he’s affiliated with. What Stone discovers is a hidden vault located in back of a laundry. But what is actually in the vault? Stone, along with Waters’ help, determines to find out.

Viewers of The Trust – should anyone take such an ill-advised step – will find themselves unsurprised at the dearth of reasonable ideas, the lack of credibility, and the complete absence of tension or drama. They’ll be equally unsurprised at the way in which the narrative unfolds with all the urgency of someone with crippling arthritis trying to navigate a particularly steep set of stairs. In the hands of its directors, the movie stumbles around looking for reasons to keep Stone and Waters together, while ignoring the plain and simple fact that despite the “best” efforts of Cage and Wood, the movie can’t come up with any reason they would ever team up in the first place. It’s the elephant in the room: why would Waters go along with Stone’s plan when there’s so much they don’t know, and so much that could go wrong?

But hey, this is the movies, and people do the funniest things in the movies, like purchase expensive drilling equipment from a German manufacturer because it’ll be harder to trace (really?), or let a hostage make a phone call during the middle of a heist (that won’t come back to haunt anyone, surely?). It’s a truism that the cleverer the concept the sillier the execution, and The Trust is no different in its attention to making things look and sound absurd. From the now traditional discussion where one person outlines their criminal plan to another in a public place (a Vegas casino bar on this occasion), to Stone and Waters being able to just drop their day job and concentrate on breaking into the vault, the script by co-director Benjamin Brewer and Adam Hirsch cuts narrative corners as if it’s de rigeuer for this sort of movie, and never once gives the viewer the sense that this is all happening in a world anyone could recognise.

And it’s yet another movie that features a performance from Nicolas Cage that has little to offer other than the actor’s trademark tics and quirky line deliveries. It seems incredible that you have to go back to 2013 to find a Cage performance worthy of his talent, but that’s how long it’s been (it was a banner year for Cage, with roles in Joe, The Frozen Ground, and The Croods all reminding us of just how good he can be). Here he looks tired, not quite going through the motions but perilously close to it, his mannerisms and reactions just a touch off from what they would be if he were fully engaged with the material. It’s a shame to see Cage at such a remove from what he can achieve as an actor; perhaps his upcoming turn in Oliver Stone’s Snowden will help turn things around.

Playing opposite him, Wood does his best but may now be wishing that original choice Jack Huston had been able to play Waters. It’s the “anxious partner” role, the doubting Thomas who sees the potential for disaster at every turn, and who’s proved right (and suffers for it). Since playing a certain Hobbit back at the turn of the century, Wood’s career has been a varied one, but mostly played out in shorts and TV shows. Here he’s competent enough, but like Cage he can’t wrestle anything from the script that will allow him to improve on what he’s been given to work with. As a result, it’s to Wood’s chagrin perhaps that, on occasion, he looks like he’s lost.

Rating: 4/10 – with the narrative proving only occasionally interesting or absorbing, and with the actual vault break-in taking up far too much of the running time, The Trust is more laborious than it needs to be; tedious then, and a waste of both Cage and Wood, and punctuated by unnecessary bursts of violence, it’s a movie that never settles for, or decides on, a consistent tone to help tell its story.

Like so many of his contemporaries, Guy Hamilton got into movie making in the wake of World War II. He started off as an assistant director on They Made Me a Criminal (1947) and continued in that role for the next five years, honing his craft working with directors such as Carol Reed and John Huston. In 1952 he took the plunge into direction with The Ringer, a low-key thriller starring Herbert Lom and Donald Wolfit. He continued to work steadily through the Fifties until he got the call to work on a spy movie called Goldfinger (1964). It was to be the first of four Bond outings that Hamilton would direct – the others were Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Live and Let Die (1973), and The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) – but it was also the first to fully establish the Bond template. The gritty seriousness of the first two movies was replaced with a more carefree, fantasy-lite approach that has been the hallmark of the series up until the arrival of Daniel Craig.

Goldfinger‘s success allowed Hamilton to make the movies he wanted to make, but his career was always sporadic, with periods where he seemed semi-retired. Late on he flirted with Agatha Christie, but by the mid-Eighties his career was winding down, and he made his last movie, the rarely seen Try This One for Size, in 1989. Hamilton was an urbane, intelligent movie director who was able to adapt his directorial style to the material at hand, getting the most out of it, and rarely failing to entertain the audience. And in relation to James Bond, he once made this very perceptive (at the time) comment: “One of the rules with the Bond pictures is that you’re not allowed to have a leading lady who can act – because we can’t afford them….If ever we were to have a real leading lady, the next time around we’d have to find another one. And in no time at all we’d have to have, oh, Jane Fonda for $2 million and up.”

Psychotherapist Peter Bowers (Brody) has his own problems. His daughter has recently been killed in a road accident, and his career is being propped up thanks to the help of his mentor, Duncan Stewart (Neill). He seems to be managing his grief but is prone to moping about with a withdrawn, brooding demeanour that his wife (Baird) prefers to sleep through rather than engage with. As Bowers gets back into the routine of seeing patients, some of their eccentricities – one, a musician (Spence), swears he performed the night before at a club that closed down long ago – begin to worry him. He can’t put his finger on what’s bothering him, and a new patient, a young girl, Elizabeth Valentine (Bayliss), who won’t speak, adds further to his sense that something isn’t quite right.

When the mystery surrounding his patients deepens, Bowers does some detective work and discovers they all have something in common, something that sends him back to his hometown of False Creek and an event that happened twenty years before. As he starts to piece together the facts of what happened when he was a boy, Bowers attempts to reconnect with his father, William (Shevtsov), while also piquing the interest of local police officer, Barbara Henning (McLeavy). And when Bowers thinks he’s got to the bottom of it all, he’s unprepared for yet another revelation that puts his life in danger.

The above synopsis is deliberately vague because it would be unfair to divulge the movie’s central conceit (though there are plenty of websites that will tell you if you absolutely have to know in advance what it is). The movie itself reveals this “twist” around the half hour mark, and once it does, the movie transforms from awkwardly staged psychodrama with supernatural overtones to mystery thriller with supernatural overtones. It’s not an entirely comfortable switch, and there are more than enough clues to suggest that the movie’s narrative is a combination of two separate story ideas that weren’t strong enough on their own.

However, the switch is also welcome, as writer/director Michael Petroni isn’t as sure-footed exploring Bowers’ grief over the loss of his daughter as he is with letting Bowers loose to solve a twenty-year mystery that nobody – including him – knew was a mystery in the first place. Before Bowers arrives at False Creek, Petroni has him questioning his own sanity, but in such a crude, rudimentary way that his behaviour has all the hallmarks of having been created by someone who’s heard that grief-stricken fathers all behave in the same way. Adrien Brody is a very, very talented actor (and Petroni has been lucky to nab him), but even he can’t do anything with a character who alternates between emotionally devastated and psychologically damaged, and does so without any consistency of reasoning.

But once Bowers is deposited in the rural backwater that serves as his birthplace and the location of a twenty year old tragedy, Brody is freed from all that brooding and is free to loosen up in his portrayal. Unfortunately, the mystery he’s required to solve is one that will have viewers scratching their heads and wondering if they’re missing something. Coincidence is piled atop coincidence with increasing disregard for credibility, and Brody visits the scene of the tragedy so many times it becomes embarrassing as he remembers “everything”. In between times he argues with his father, arouses the suspicions of Officer Henning, and manages to remember – thanks to some ghostly visitations – that he should still be grieving. His actions appear more selfish and cathartic than altruistic, and even when the scope of the tragedy is revealed (and the mystery that goes with it), Bowers ensures that it’s all still about him.

There’s the germ of a good idea for a movie here, but under Petroni’s watch it’s not allowed to develop fully. The script repeatedly makes leaps of faith that are either baffling or absurd, Neill’s character should have all the answers but disappears too quickly, Officer Henning’s connection to the tragedy is handled as awkwardly as Bowers initial malaise, and a secondary character’s fate is decided on entirely so that one particular clue can be introduced and drive the movie forward. But by this time, most viewers will be beginning to wonder just how silly it can all get; the last ten minutes will reassure them: very.

Backtrack is a movie with a handful of competent performances, but they’re not allowed to flourish thanks to the vagaries of Petroni’s script, and it’s insistence on being two parts obvious thriller and one part supernatural mishmash. Brody must be wondering what’s happened to his career (The Grand Budapest Hotel seems like such a long time ago now), while Shevtsov and McLeavy are reduced to playing pawns at the mercy of the script and Petroni’s wayward sense of direction (in both senses of the phrase), while Neill is lucky enough to escape with a minor role.

And for a movie shot entirely in Australia, this may be one of the few occasions where an Australian movie looks so nondescript. The early scenes in Melbourne could have been filmed in any large city in any number of countries, and the town of False Creek wouldn’t look out of place anywhere in America’s Deep South. DoP Stefan Duscio did some great work on his last feature, The Mule (2014), but here it’s as if he’s been instructed to make everything look bland and/or neutral. With so little to engage with on an emotional level, it’s one last disappointment to have a movie that’s so insipid to look at as well.

Rating: 4/10 – Petroni asks too much of both his cast and the audience in telling such a dreary tale, with the result that Backtrack is a movie that never really gets started; it doesn’t help that it gets sillier and sillier as it progresses, until by the end whatever positives it possessed at the start have been abandoned in favour of a generic thriller outcome that is as tedious as it is absurdly set up.

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The first in a weekly series designed to encourage debate on thedullwoodexperiment, and where readers/followers/first-timers/anyone can air their opinions/views/thoughts on the topic/subject/idea in question.

With the release this week of the teaser trailer for this particular movie, the Question of the Week is:

The first of two live action versions of Rudyard Kipling’s classic tale – the other, just called Jungle Book and directed by Andy Serkis, is due in 2018 – Disney’s remake of their own beloved animated classic arrives with much fanfare and enough hype to stop even Shere Khan in his bloodthirsty tracks. It’s taken over $300 million at the international box office already, and the House of Mouse is keen to get director Jon Favreau and writer Justin Marks back for a sequel (surprise, surprise). The CGI environment created for the characters, and against which token human Mowgli (Sethi) interacts, is incredibly detailed and realistic, while the final showdown between tiger and man-cub is… well… it’s okay.

And that’s the problem with the movie as a whole: it’s okay. When the best thing you can say about a movie is that the backgrounds look realistic, then it’s a sure sign that whatever Favreau and co were aiming for, they didn’t actually achieve it. And yet the material is there to be taken advantage of, as Disney did nearly fifty years ago when they made the animated version. But this version makes some significant changes to the original, and while you don’t want an exact carbon copy of what went before, there’s too much that’s different for the movie to work as well as its predecessor.

First, there’s the musical elements. Shoehorned into the movie are two of the animated version’s most enjoyable songs, The Bare Necessities and I Wanna Be Like You. This isn’t a musical version of the story, and yet these two songs are included, and awkwardly at that. There’s no reason for them to be there, unless Disney felt that modern audiences, perhaps weaned on the animated version, would feel upset if they weren’t included. As it is, The Bare Necessities is given a nostalgic feel that helps offset the oddness of its inclusion, but the same can’t be said of I Wanna Be Like You, an uncomfortable rendition of which is given by Christopher Walken as King Louie, a giant orang-utan you half suspect has been eating his tribe in order to get so big. Some viewers may well be happy to see these songs included, but in terms of the movie itself they’re interruptions to the flow of the movie and the narrative.

But the flow of the movie is also a problem. Favreau is a capable director but he doesn’t always get the pace of a movie right – check out Iron Man 2 (2010) as a prime example. Here he connects each scene as if they were part of a larger puzzle and he’s got too much time to put it all together. This leads to stretches where The Jungle Book pads along like Shere Khan at the watering hole, full of intention but held back by an unwanted need for restraint. It makes for a choppy, uneven movie that holds the attention completely in certain scenes, but then abandons that attention in favour of just moving on.

And then there’s the ending, changed from the animated version – where Mowgli heads off to the man village because that’s where his future lies – to reflect… well, it’s not altogether clear. Mowgli has clearly found his true place in the jungle, but it’s at odds with what Shere Khan and even Bagheera have been saying all along: that Mowgli will grow up to be a man, and man has no place in the jungle (it’s even part of the jungle law, but the script ignores this practically the moment it’s been brought up). Back in 1968 this bittersweet ending was the perfect conclusion to Mowgli’s story, but here it seems like a cynical decision to help set up and ensure the sequel(s) that Disney are looking for. In a weird way, the script’s decision to integrate Mowgli more fully with the jungle environment makes him seem like another Tarzan in the making.

On the plus side, Favreau has assembled a great cast to give vocal life to the animal characters, with Murray on fine form as Baloo, and Johansson proving especially effective as Kaa. Kingsley is somewhat swamped by the script’s decision to make Bagheera almost entirely like a resigned schoolmaster, Nyong’o and Esposito make the most of their underwritten wolf parts, while Walken does his best to make King Louie frightening, but weirdly, sounds more like Kevin Spacey doing an impression of Christopher Walken than Walken himself. And then there’s Idris Elba, cast as Shere Khan; somehow his gruff tones don’t seem to suit the role, and his scenes have an awkwardness to them in terms of his voice not fitting the look of the character. In effect, it’s as if his voice has been badly dubbed.

As the only human in the movie, a lot rides on the abilities of Sethi, and while he’s certainly proficient, his performance isn’t as effective as it could be. In the scene where Mowgli decides to leave the jungle and go to the man village, his lack of experience leaves the scene feeling perfunctory rather than highly emotive, and you get the sense that Favreau was unable to get more from him. If Sethi is to take part in any further movies as Mowgli then it’s to be hoped that his experience this time round proves to be the bedrock for better performances in the future.

All in all, The Jungle Book isn’t a bad movie per se, it’s just that it doesn’t have that spark that would have made it a truly enjoyable movie. And despite its evident popularity with audiences worldwide, it’s likely that its success is due to brand recognition rather than any inherent quality. Remakes are a tricky business to get right, as any studio or production company should know, but with Disney – and it shouldn’t be the case – you somehow expect something a little bit better, and a little bit more entertaining. That it’s just okay is perhaps worse than its being just bad.

Rating: 5/10 – nowhere near the live action remake audiences really needed, The Jungle Book suffers from being too clinical and too respectful of itself (if not Kipling’s original tale); with too many moments that pass without emphasis or emotion, it remains a beautiful movie to watch, but an empty one as well.

Having claimed a number of awards, including an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, since its debut at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Son of Saul has also been extremely well received by critics and was in many Top 10 lists at the end of last year. Through its central character of Saul Ausländer (Röhrig), we’re introduced to the Sonderkommandos, concentration camp work units that were usually comprised of Jews, and whose job it was to assist in the disposal of the people (and their belongings) who had been killed in the gas chambers. A Sonderkommando was never given a choice about their role, and though they had slightly better living conditions than the rest of the camp inmates, it was inevitable that they would be “retired” after three or four months of working.

Against this backdrop, and the events that took place at Auschwitz in October 1944, first-time writer/director László Nemes has fashioned a grim, harrowing, and remarkable movie debut that acknowledges the horrors of the Holocaust while also allowing for rare moments of peace and beauty and hope amidst all the despair of life in a concentration camp. How Nemes does this is perhaps the most impressive aspect of the movie, as the camera – formidably handled by DoP Mátyás Erdély – sticks close to the character of Saul and rarely strays further than a foot away from his head or shoulders. When it does, though, and the larger picture of life in the camp is revealed, it has an impact that Nemes quite carefully cultivates for maximum effect.

With the camera being so close to Saul, Nemes also distances the background by keeping it out of focus, a decision that fits with the world as Saul sees it. There will be viewers who will find this approach annoying, and perhaps less dramatic than if the wider “world” around Saul had been revealed in all its ugly wretchedness. But this would be to miss the point of Saul’s involvement with the rest of the camp. Even before he discovers the boy who survives the gas chamber – and then only to be summarily suffocated by a Nazi doctor – and takes him to be his son, Saul has chosen to survive in the camp by cutting himself off from everyone else, and only interacting with others when he needs to. So the movie’s visual design, where events happen around Saul and without his direct involvement, are kept fuzzy and indistinct, and where Saul has chosen to keep them.

To mitigate against this distancing effect, however, Nemes has also made the movie’s sound design an integral part of the drama, as through the various sounds and noises of the camp, and those made by the inmates and the guards, the things that Saul chooses to ignore are made vividly obvious and given a chilling reality that offsets the visual composition. As the continual blurring of background images occurs so too does the sharpness of dialogue and sound effects, perhaps most effectively realised in the sequence where, with one of the gas chambers not ready to be used, the latest arrivals are taken out to the nearby woods and stripped and shot. It’s an incredible sequence, shot in a cinéma vérité style that reinforces the horrible expediency that cost so many people their lives.

Away from the visual and aural decisions that make the movie look and sound like no other Holocaust movie before it, Saul’s story is a simple one: he wants to give the boy he believes to be his son a proper burial, and the attendant service given by a rabbi (Saul is not a practising religious man; as a result he doesn’t realise that a rabbi isn’t necessary for what he wants to do). Saul becomes obsessed with making his plan happen, but it proves harder to achieve than he thought. He’s unable to find a rabbi who will perform the ceremony, and his efforts to find one are constantly interrupted or foiled by the demands of some of the other Sonderkommandos. They’re planning an uprising, and want Saul to help them. His attempts to please them and also satisfy his own needs form the basis of the narrative, but Nemes makes it clear that Saul’s need to bury the boy is his first priority.

Again, some viewers may have an issue with the single-mindedness that Saul adopts here, as he jeopardises both his own life and those of his fellow Sonderkommandos as he seeks out a rabbi. His determination is such that he acts recklessly, and seemingly without regard for his own safety or the safety of others. An attempt to photograph some of the atrocities carried out at the camp is nearly discovered thanks to Saul’s unthinking behaviour, and later, when he finds someone he believes to be a rabbi (Charmont), Saul nearly ends up being mistaken for a new arrival (and killed). And when circumstances dictate that the uprising needs to happen sooner than planned, Saul’s only concern is ensuring that the boy’s body is kept safe enough to be buried still. But it’s this dogged refusal to give up that enables Saul to keep going, it’s his way of retaining some humanity in the face of the wanton cruelty he sees each and every day.

As Saul, Röhrig gives an incredible, melancholy performance that is built on telling expressions and a minimal amount of dialogue. Saul is a man consumed by reticence and detachment, focused on whatever he himself is doing at any given moment, and Röhrig, whose only previous acting experience was in a Hungarian TV show in 1989, shows the character’s distance from his surroundings as both a blessing and a curse. It’s a finely nuanced and controlled performance, intelligent and surprisingly emotive, and his ability to display a variety of emotions through the mask-like appearance Saul adopts in the camp is a masterclass in screen acting.

In addressing the issue of the Sonderkommandos and their place in the concentration camps, Nemes is also giving a voice to the people who didn’t survive the camps. It’s a fine distinction to make when so many other Holocaust movies celebrate the survivors over the ones who met their fates in a gas chamber. It makes the movie a bleaker experience than most, and its haunting, distressing tone is all the more forceful and compelling because of it. Son of Saul may not be a comfortable movie to watch, and it may not be rewarding in the traditional sense, but it is a testament to the tenacity and the courage of those who found themselves in one of the worst predicaments ever: that of aiding in the deaths of millions of people like themselves.

Rating: 9/10 – expertly handled, and refusing to indulge in any kind of melodrama, Son of Saul is one of the finest Holocaust movies ever made; intense, horrible (and horrifying), disturbing, and brilliant, there are moments that will linger in the memory, but in shining a light on a rarely discussed aspect of “life” in the camps, the movie earns its place in cinema history as an important historical record.

On 18 February 1952, the SS Pendleton, sailing from New Orleans to Boston, was one of two ships caught in a severe storm; both broke in two off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The other unfortunate ship was the SS Fort Mercer. With thirty-three crew members aboard the still floating stern of the ship, the Coast Guard despatched a motor boat from nearby Chatham, though with only four crew on board. In rough seas and with no guarantee they would reach the ailing ship in time, the motor boat reached the Pendleton and was able to rescue all but one of the remaining crew. The rescue was widely regarded as one of the most daring rescues in the history of the United States Coast Guard. In 2009, the rescue was the subject of a book, The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Most Daring Sea Rescue by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman.

If the brief account given above seems to indicate that The Finest Hours will be a gripping, edge-of-the-seat recounting of the that daring rescue mission, then potential viewers be warned: the movie doesn’t reach that level of excitement at any point in its running time. Instead the movie elects to be a very pedestrian retelling of the events on that fateful day, and initially, seems more concerned about covering the romance between motor boat skipper Bernie Webber (Pine) and his girlfriend, Miriam Pentinen (Grainger). We get to see how the two meet, and then there’s a protracted sequence where their engagement requires Bernie to speak to his commander, Daniel Cluff (Bana), for permission to wed (it’s a formality but Bernie treats it as if he’s asking Cluff for something major).

In the midst of Bernie’s dithering, the SS Fort Mercer‘s plight is reported, but other coast guard stations are already dealing with it. It’s only when the Pendleton’s equal predicament comes to light that Bernie actually stops being a bit of a doormat and chooses to go out to the stricken vessel. Most everyone sees it as a reckless, even suicidal mission, and Bernie is joined by just two of his colleagues, Richard Livesey (Foster) and Andy Fitzgerald (Gallner), and by a seaman, Ervin Maske (Magaro), who just happens to be there when the Pendleton‘s plight is discovered. Each man knows that there’s a good chance they won’t make it to the ship, or even come back, but as Bernie says, “They say you gotta go out. They don’t say you gotta come back”. And with that reassuring quote, the four men take a motor boat out into heavy seas and fight their way over a stretch of treacherous water called the Bar. And from there, and without a compass to guide them, they attempt to find the Pendleton.

Even now it all seems highly dramatic, the kind of heroic true story that proves inspiring, and makes the viewer want to be a part of that rescue mission if it were at all possible. But the movie founders from this point on, and while the crew of the Pendleton, ostensibly led by engineer Ray Sybert (Affleck), struggle to keep the stern afloat until help arrives, Bernie and his crew are faced with a seemingly number of violent swells to overcome, and all of which are bested by Bernie – basically – accelerating over or through them. This repetition proves wearing, and robs the movie of any tension, because no matter how big the approaching waves are, Bernie just floors it, and any sense of peril is quickly and completely dismissed.

Meanwhile, Sybert has to contend with semi-mutinous crew member D.A. Brown (Raymond-James) and his insistence that they get off the Pendleton by using the lifeboats. In one of the movie’s better scenes, Sybert shows everyone why that isn’t such a good idea, but otherwise any tension is dissipated by Affleck’s restrained performance, and no concrete sense that anyone on the ship is in any real danger (which is disconcerting considering their situation). And this is the movie’s main problem: it doesn’t really know how to make all this frightening or gripping or challenging. Even during the rescue, a sequence which should have ramped up the tension to unbearable levels, the movie fails to capitalise on the situation and keep the viewer on the edge of their seat. Instead the movie acts as a kind of dramatic, clichéd tick box exercise.

The movie also marginalises all its characters with the exception of Miriam. While Bernie and his crew become mere figures on a boat who are focused on the seas ahead, everyone back at Chatham is kept either hanging round the coast guard radio, or eventually, in a risible sequence where the townsfolk gather their cars at the dock with their headlights on to guide poor Bernie home, asked to pull together and be part of the heroic effort themselves. This is partly down to Miriam, who makes an attempt to get the rescue mission called off because Bernie has decided to do the right thing. It’s an incredibly selfish thing to do, but the movie tries to make her look heroic rather than self-serving, and it never recovers from it. And once he is out there, and despite several dozen close ups, Pine’s Bernie could be just about anyone getting buckets of water thrown over them.

The Finest Hours also has an odd visual look about it, one that heightens the artificality of the CGI rendered waves and the Pendleton‘s exterior, particularly when the actual rescue is in progress. It’s at this point that the viewer will be unable to retain a sense of the scope and size of the mission itself, and will be trapped into thinking, “what a small tank they must have used”. And then, with the trip out to the stricken Pendleton having taken so long, the movie rushes the return trip, and the movie ends without ever establishing itself as a thrill-ride or a serious, dramatic tale of heroism on the high seas.

Partly this is due to the structure of the script, which pays too much attention to events playing out on land rather than at sea, and Gillespie’s watered-down direction (pun intended). As a result, the cast make little impact, with only Grainger standing out from the faceless crowd – Foster is one of several cast members who are completely wasted in their roles – and the movie lurches from one unconvincing scene to the next, devoid of any sense of unease, and ending up as stranded as the Pendleton is in the few hours left to it before it sinks completely.

Rating: 5/10 – only occasionally (and even then briefly) powerful, The Finest Hours does scant justice to its true story, and introduces too many fictional elements to make it work effectively; with a bland central performance from Pine, and without a strong-minded director at the helm, the movie disappoints more than it impresses and seems almost wilfully lacklustre.

An actor with a wider range than most people give him credit for, Sean Bean is also one of the most consistently reliable actors working today. He may be well known for his more villainous roles – which, admittedly, he’s very good at playing – but since playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), his career has become more varied and (no doubt for him as well as us) more rewarding. His tough, uncompromising demeanour belies a man who listens to classical music when he’s preparing for a scene, and who is still a fervent supporter of Sheffield United football club. He made his feature debut in Winter Flight (1984), and since then has amassed over a hundred credits in both the movies and on TV, including appearances in Lady Chatterley (1993), the Sharpe series of TV movies, and more recently, season one of Game of Thrones (2011). On the big screen he’s a familiar face who brings a certain degree of gravelly sincerity to his roles. Here then are five Sean Bean movies that feature some of his more under-appreciated portrayals… and where his character doesn’t get killed.

Tom & Thomas (2002) – Character: Paul Sheppard

A rarely seen children’s movie, Tom & Thomas sees Bean play the adoptive father of one of a set of twin boys (both played by Aaron Johnson, now better known as Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Once they meet, the other twin’s involvement with a group of child smugglers sets the pair off on a great adventure. It’s an enjoyable, unassuming movie, and it’s good to see Bean making the most of such a different role from the ones he’d been used to up until then.

Anna Karenina (1997) – Character: Count Alexei Kirillovitch Vronsky

Unfairly dismissed by critics upon release, Bernard Rose’s Russian-shot (and badly cut by the studio) version of Anna Karenina certainly has its problems in the script department, but remains a beautifully realised production of Tolstoy’s classic novel, with superb use of music by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. Bean is a convincing, dashing Vronsky, and his scenes with Sophie Marceau are impeccable for the way in which both actors portray the overwhelming passion their characters feel for each other.

North Country (2005) – Character: Kyle Dodge

Bean takes a supporting role in another movie that broadens his career CV, playing the good friend of Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) who brings a class action suit for sexual harassment against the owners of an iron mine. Based on a true story, Niki Caro’s movie is eloquent, passionate, and inspiring, and Bean fits in well as one of the few men in Josey’s life who aren’t either sexist scumbags or manipulative, uncaring “primitives”.

Far North (2007) – Character: Loki

In this strange and haunting tale set in the arctic tundra, Bean plays a man whose sudden interjection into the lives of a mother and daughter leads to both unexpected passion and forecasted tragedy. Kapadia’s last feature until this year’s Ali and Nino, Far North is a tough, uncompromising movie made against some stunning backdrops and giving Bean the chance to reveal a less macho side to his acting.

The Field (1990) – Character: Tadgh McCabe

Although it was a commercial failure, The Field still has a good reputation amongst movie lovers, thanks in the main to Richard Harris’s performance as Bull McCabe, but there are other positives as well, such as Bean’s stalwart turn as Bull’s son. It’s a powerful portrayal of a son unwilling (or unable) to meet his father’s expectations of him. It’s a movie where tragedy is just waiting to happen, and where pride is the instigator of that tragedy, and in the hands of writer/director Jim Sheridan, packs such an emotional punch you’ll be bruised for days after seeing it.

1976 was a slightly odd year for movies. There were enough instant classics to help compile this list, but it wasn’t a banner year, and it passed by without too much yelling from the rooftops about this movie or that movie. After the excellent year that was 1975 (itself following on from an even more impressive 1974), 1976 was a year where the movies that were released seemed a little below par. It was almost as if movie makers around the globe – with the exception of those mentioned below – were off their game, or that there weren’t enough original ideas going around for anyone to get a hold of and make something of them. But the ten movies listed here were successful, and fully deserving of all the accolades and critical acclaim (if not the box office success that some missed out on) that came their way. It’s a tribute to the movies themselves, and to their makers, that we’re still talking about them today.

1) Rocky – It was the movie that made Sylvester Stallone a star, and introduced us to a character who has endured several sequels, and in 2015, enjoyed something of a renaissance. Rocky Balboa is a terrific creation, and Stallone understood him completely, bringing a degree of gravitas to the role that is still effective when viewed forty years on. Future incarnations may have tarnished Stallone’s original interpretation, but the movie itself is a wonderful tribute to the idea that even the most average of people can achieve greatness if they work hard enough and believe in themselves.

2) Taxi Driver – Known more for its “You talkin’ to me?” moment than anything else these days, Martin Scorsese’s harsh, uncompromising look at one man’s mental deterioration in the face of overwhelming moral and political corruption is one of the most jarring and breathtaking movies ever made. There’s a crude energy to the movie that makes De Niro’s incredible performance all the more uncompromising, but while he’s the movie’s central focus, let’s not forget the superb supporting performances from the likes of Cybill Shepherd, Jodie Foster, and Albert Brooks, and .

3) In the Realm of the Senses – More controversy, as Japanese director Nagisa Ôshima explores the true story of Sada Abe, whose affair with her master became all-consuming, and which led to a terrible act of violence. The controversy here was the explicit sex performed by actors Tatsuya Fuji (the master) and Eiko Matsuda (Abe), but this isn’t an erotic movie by any standards, thanks to an exemplary script by Ôshima that focuses on the couple’s relationship and the overwhelming emotions that developed as a result of their affair. That said, the movie does have its lurid moments, but these are offset by Ôshima’s refusal to judge either character, and thanks to two very committed performances by Fuji and Matsuda.

4) Network – The movie that saw Peter Finch win a posthumous Oscar for his portrayal of a newsreader who famously declares that he’s “mad as hell, and [he’s] not going to take this anymore”, Network is much more than a glimpse into one man’s mental unravelling, but a stinging satire on the nature of news gathering and the lengths some organisations will go to in exploiting their staff for financial gain. Packed with enough cynicism to stop a herd of charging elephants, Paddy Chayefsky’s script (also an Oscar winner) is one of the most intelligent, gripping and perceptive ever written, and Sidney Lumet’s direction teases out every nuance.

5) All the President’s Men – William Goldman is the scribe responsible for the saying, “In Hollywood, nobody knows anything”. But in adapting Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s riveting account of Richard Nixon’s fall from grace through the Watergate affair, Goldman shows he knows exactly what he’s doing, and the result is a political thriller that grabs its audience from the beginning and doesn’t let go for the next two and a quarter hours. Even though we all know the outcome, and from this point in time the depth of Nixon’s involvement, it’s still an incredible journey that the movie takes us on. The only question that remains unanswered is why Bernstein has a bicycle wheel at the side of his desk all the time.

6) 1900 – Bernardo Bertolucci’s epic, five hours plus look at the social and political upheaval in early 20th century Italy that saw fascism give way to communism, and as seen through the eyes of two friends – Gérard Depardieu, Robert De Niro – from opposite sides of the class divide. Beautifully shot by Vittorio Storraro and spanning over forty years, Bertolucci’s confidence in the material and his cast provides the viewer with some of the most breathtaking moments in world cinema (or just cinema as a whole). Unfairly mistreated since its release – several edited versions have been more available than the original cut – this is richly rewarding and a movie that never fails to excite, stimulate and inspire.

7) Robin and Marian – A somewhat dour but compelling addition to the Robin Hood myth sees Sean Connery’s older, wiser Robin returning from the Crusades to woo Audrey Hepburn’s Maid Marian one last time. It’s a bittersweet affair, a jaded yet moving romance set against the backdrop of Robin’s desire to retire the legend that’s built up around him, but which no one wants to see come to an end. It’s another movie that’s been beautifully shot, this time by David Watkin, and features an eloquent score by John Barry that is actually one of his very best, and for those patient enough to wait for it, features one of the best sword fights ever committed to the big screen.

8) The Killing of a Chinese Bookie – The kind of indie crime drama that no one makes anymore, John Cassavetes’ superb examination of an inveterate gambler’s addiction getting him into serious trouble with the Mob is a masterclass in dramatic tension. As the gambler in question, Ben Gazzara gives a career best performance, but this is Cassavetes’ movie through and through, as he explores notions of masculinity and pride through the actions of one of life’s continual losers, and structures the movie in such a way that you’re never sure if everything is happening for real or in some fever dream that Gazzara’s character is having.

9) Fellini’s Casanova – Only Fellini could have made a movie about the world’s most famous seducer of women and made it equally about the era that defined him, a time of opulence and unfettered greed. Against this backdrop, Fellini paints a compelling portrait of a Renaissance man who doesn’t fit in unless he’s bedding women as a way of warding off his own lack of self-confidence, and to maintain his “reputation”. Fellini directs in a fantastical, scattershot, self-aggrandising manner that reflects the material, and as the grand seducer, Donald Sutherland gives one of his best performances. Unfairly dismissed by US critics on release, this is now regarded as one of the best of Fellini’s later works, and deserves to be more widely available as well.

10) Kings of the Road – With standout performances from Rüdiger Vogler and Hanns Zischler as the two men who decide to travel together around Germany, Wim Wenders’ melancholic musings on loneliness and acceptance, combined with a visual austerity to match their emotional obduracy, is one of the finest German made movies of the Seventies. A road trip that also acts as an exploration of a country still coming to terms with the Second World War, this is a movie that has a surprising amount of heart beneath its drab exterior, and despite its length (nearly three hours) compels the viewer to see how it all works out.

Sometimes the best movies happen because somebody had a “what if?” idea. What if toys had a life of their own? What if an amnesiac remembered the important parts of his life by tattooing them on his body? What if Netflix were to give Adam Sandler a six picture contract with carte blanche as to the movies he makes? (Hmmm…) Another great “What if?” idea is the one that makes Band of Robbers so intriguing (and appealing): what if Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were adults in the modern world, and they were still trying to find Murrell’s hidden treasure?

In the hands of the Brothers Nee, this idea is given a great deal of dramatic and comedic licence, with the older Tom and Huck still friends but on opposite sides of the law (or so it seems). Huck (Gallner) is a petty criminal who has just got out of prison and is determined to go straight. Tom (Nee) is a policeman living and working in the shadow of his older brother, Sid (Olsen). Tom is also a dreamer, still obsessed with finding the treasure that eluded Huck and him when they were boys. So when Huck is released from jail, it’s only natural that Tom is there to meet him. And it’s only natural that Tom has a plan, one that includes Huck, and their three friends, Joe Harper (Gubler), Ben Rogers (Buress), and Tommy Barnes (Pemberton).

His plan is based on dubious intelligence gained from local sot Muff Potter (Huckabee). Muff has seen Injun Joe (Lang) – who has also never given up on finding the treasure – depositing something in the safe of a local pawn shop. Surmising that it must be something of great value to Injun Joe for him to keep it there, Tom has deduced (without any concrete evidence) that it must be the treasure that’s stowed away in the pawn shop’s safe. He devises a plan to rob the pawn shop that seems foolproof enough, but on the day his plan is stretched almost to ruin. First he’s teamed up with a new partner, Becky Thatcher (Benoist), then Joe forgets to hire a Mexican to drive the van he hasn’t stolen for the robbery (don’t worry, it does all makes sense in the context of the movie), and instead of stockings for Joe and Huck to wear, they’re stuck with carrier bags. But they do get away with the contents of the safe: what amounts to around two hundred dollars and a pewter coin.

Of course the pewter coin proves to be a clue to the whereabouts of the hidden treasure, but from this point on, Huck and Tom are pursued by Injun Joe. And as they solve another set of clues, Becky’s involvement – and awareness that Tom is up to no good – adds to the two friends’ predicament. And as Injun Joe’s “methods” of tracking them down leads to a surfeit of dead bodies, it becomes more and more difficult for Tom and Huck to find a way out that will keep both of them alive and out of jail. And then there’s the problem of the Mexican gardener, Jorge (Mora)…

Band of Robbers is a movie that could have gone horribly, terribly wrong. But thanks to the Nee brothers’ inspired approach to the story they’ve concocted, the somewhat awkward mix of comedy and drama that threatens to deflate like an overcooked soufflé, both maintains its shape and rises confidently to provide a delicious pudding of a movie that is a joy to consume (okay, enough of the food metaphors). Viewers might initially be put off by Nee’s portrayal of Tom Sawyer – a literary icon let’s not forget – as a morally dubious, consequence-blind idiot, but this is just the surface of the character, and Nee wisely adds more serious layers to his performance as the movie progresses. But he also provides much of the humour in the movie’s first three chapters, his forty mile an hour, rambling streams of consciousness containing a good deal of anarchic tomfoolery and comic verbal dexterity. Some jokes miss the target (as you’d expect from this kind of onslaught), but they’re in the minority.

As Huck, Gallner is the necessary straight man to Nee’s grown up wild child. He gives Nee room to do his thing, and quietly holds the movie together by virtue of being the serious one. Huck is a counter-balance to Tom’s freewheeling hijinks, and while the part may appear staid in comparison, Gallner exudes a laconic resignation re: the events he finds himself caught up in, that anchors the movie and stops it from going too far in the opposite direction. Huck is the movie’s beating heart, while Tom is the brain that’s not been wired correctly. Both actors excel in their roles, and there’s a genuine sense of camaraderie in their moments together.

Elements of Twain’s work are woven into the storyline, with nods to the original stories, and characters other than Tom and Huck are given modern day life. There are time outs for the characters to reflect on issues of responsibility and hope, morality and immorality, and the nature of determinism. Heavyweight concepts some of them, but again, the Nee brothers keep things light and buoyant for the most part, and ensure that even in the movie’s darker places there’ll soon be another reassuring moment of lightheartedness to soothe away any anxiety. And it’s in the movie’s favour that whenever the material does darken – watch out for a chilling exchange between Injun Joe and Joe Harper – that the Nees’ let it go as dark as it needs.

It would be easy to dismiss Band of Robbers as just another low budget comedy with serious pretensions, but while it does have its very silly moments, it also has its fair share of moments that reward the viewer and should leave them grinning from ear to ear with the pleasure of it all (such as the little old lady who has her car hijacked by Injun Joe). It does fall down in places – Tom’s clumsiness is an extra attempt at comedy that the movie doesn’t need, Becky Thatcher is an overwhelmingly vanilla character, some of the visual gags aren’t so well staged as others – but all in all, this is a surprisingly effective tribute to the genius that is Mark Twain, and it more than holds its own against other modern day screwball comedies.

Rating: 8/10 – an unexpected gem of a movie, Band of Robbers has genuine heart and an engaging style, and is all kinds of quirky – but in a good way; Nee and Gallner make a great team, and the movie has a confidence about it that never falters, making it a treat for anyone fortunate enough to watch it.

It’s actually hard to know where to start with The 5th Wave. (It’s equally hard to know where to finish as well.) Yet another adaptation of the first in a trilogy of YA novels – this time by Rick Yancey – the movie has so many problems, and so many flaws it’s almost embarrassing. Up front and centre there’s Chloë Grace Moretz, an actress whose career has evolved – somehow – out of calling a bunch of goons “c*nts”, and who lacks the wherewithal to cry properly when her character’s father dies (look closely and you’ll find that Moretz’s face is not the definition of “tear-streaked”). Moretz just isn’t convincing enough as Cassie, the nominal heroine of the novels and the movie, and every time she’s asked to show some emotion it’s like there’s a war of attrition going on in her head, as she struggles to work out which facial expression will fit the bill. Often she settles for confused, or confused and angry, almost like they’re default modes for acting.

Then there’s the supporting cast, a mix of relative newcomers and veterans who all should have known better and sought employment elsewhere. On the veterans side there’s Liev Schreiber and Maria Bello, two very good, accomplished actors who are more than capable of giving award-winning performances (and they have). But here it’s a very different story (much like this adaptation of Yancey’s novel). Schreiber, playing a US military commander, looks bored and sounds bored throughout, as if he’s committed to the movie before reading the script and is now regretting the decision completely. Bello, on the other hand, at least has the luxury of being almost unrecognisable as another member of the military, but even she can’t bring anything resembling an effective portrayal to a role that requires her to jab her co-stars with a needle gun or spit out her lines as if they were poisonous.

On the relative newcomers side, it’s disheartening to see the likes of Revolori, excellent as the bellboy in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and Monroe, also excellent as the heroine of It Follows (2014), reduced to making ends meet by playing characters who are either unmemorable (Revolori) or stereotypically superficial (Monroe – the tough as nails female who doesn’t take shit from anyone). If this is the best movie they could get to work on in 2015 then they need to seriously rethink who’s representing them. As the two male leads, Robinson (as Cassie’s high school crush, Ben) opts for sulky and remote, while Roe (as Evan, who helps Cassie when she’s injured) aims for a combination of Theo James and Ansel Elgort from the Divergent series, and misses them both by a mile.

The look of the movie is also a problem. At the beginning, as Cassie provides an overview of the alien invasion and the various waves that have occurred so far, there’s a definite feel of money being well-spent, and the movie has an exciting buzz about it. But once that section is over, and Cassie, her father (Livingston), and her younger brother Sam (Arthur), arrive at the refugee camp it all becomes very generic in terms of both the art direction and the cinematography. And by the movie’s end, the cast are consigned to running around empty underground corridors in a volley of scenes that could be taking place in any post-apocalyptic low-budget sci-fi movie.

All this can be laid firmly at the door of the script, a mishmash of YA tropes and sci-fi melodrama that’s been cobbled together by three writers, all of whom should have been able to do a better job than this. Susannah Grant wrote the script for Erin Brockovich (2000) and was nominated for an Oscar, while Jeff Pinkner has an envious track record on TV shows such as Lost and Fringe. And then there’s Akiva Goldsman, an Oscar winner for A Beautiful Mind (2001), and a recent participant in YA adaptations with the script for Insurgent (2015). But when all three can’t stop a movie from sounding like it was written by a trio of people who believe caricature and cliché are the best options, then the movie is pretty much abandoning all hope and waving a surrender flag.

But all this pales in comparison to the flaccid direction foisted on the movie by Blakeson. Making only his second feature after The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009), Blakeson has trouble making any of it sound or look convincing, from the tepid romance between Cassie and Evan, to the video game sequences where Ben and his squad try and hunt down the aliens – possibly the worst example of the movie’s haphazard approach to editing – whatever the requirement, Blakeson finds some way to spoil it or prevent it from reaching its full potential. When you can’t even find a way of making Liev Schreiber look menacing, or inject any excitement into the destruction of a major air force base then you’ve got real problems. Maybe there’s a budgetary explanation for some of this but in the main, nothing works as well as it should.

Rating: 3/10 – its opening salvo of disaster aside, The 5th Wave works best as a cautionary tale to other makers of dystopian YA movies, in that they should avoid replicating this movie’s mistakes and do exactly the opposite of what it does here; limp and unappealing, with yet another inexplicable lead role for Moretz, it’s a movie that redefines the term “lacklustre” and has hopefully done enough to dissuade any sequels from being made.

It’s only taken writer/director Jeff Nichols four movies to become a movie maker whose projects carry an enormous weight of expectation. First there was Shotgun Stories (2007), then there was Take Shelter (2011). He followed that up with Mud (2012), and now he brings us Midnight Special, a tale about an eight year old boy who may be an alien, or an emissary from God, or something else completely. It’s a measure of Nichols’ success that he’s taken what could have been an awkward, unconvincing story – in lesser hands – and made it into an articulate, gripping tale that’s also exciting and thought-provoking.

The movie begins with the police searching for a missing child called Alton Meyer (Lieberher). He’s been abducted from a religious compound known as the Ranch. It’s head, Alton’s adoptive father, Calvin Meyer (Shepard), wants him back, and within the next four days. But Alton – who has to wear blue goggles during daylight hours – has been abducted by his real father, Roy Tomlin (Shannon), and he, along with his friend, Lucas (Edgerton), are trying to keep Alton safe and also get him to a certain place in four days’ time. There, something momentous will happen, but neither Roy nor Calvin Meyer knows what it is; and at this point, Alton doesn’t know either.

The FBI, and the NSA – in the form of agent Paul Sevier (Driver) – are also trying to find Alton, as they have become aware that he has been including coded intelligence in the sermons he’s written for Meyer. But Alton has other gifts, and one in particular, connected to his sight. When Ray decides to stop off at an old Ranch member’s home, that particular gift almost causes the house to shake apart. From there, the trio drive to the home of Alton’s mother, Sarah (Dunst), but not before an incident at a gas station reveals that Alton’s heat signature is similar to that of a nuclear bomb. Now a foursome, they travel on to the location that Alton must reach, however, they’re unaware that two members of the Ranch, Doak (Camp) and Levi (Haze), are tracking them with the intention of kidnapping Alton and returning him to the Ranch.

Before they are able to, Alton, who has been getting sicker and sicker, and has to avoid direct sunlight, tells Roy that he can no longer continue to keep hidden from the sun. Roy exposes Alton to a sunrise, and it has an extraordinary effect: he can now walk about unaffected in daylight, and knows exactly what he needs to do and why he needs to be in a certain place at a certain date and time. As he tells Roy: he doesn’t belong here.

Whether or not Alton makes it to his rendezvous is, ultimately, neither here nor there. What’s important is the journey he makes getting there, and the way in which he and his parents, and Lucas, make it there. One of the strengths of Nichols’ impressive and layered screenplay is the way in which Roy’s parental determination to not let anything stop him from getting Alton to his rendezvous, sometimes presents itself as unfeeling and harsh. When he and Lucas encounter a state trooper, Roy is unequivocal: he tells Lucas to shoot him. Roy doesn’t care about anyone else, only Alton, and his zeal and willingness to put moral certitude aside makes him one of recent cinema’s more interesting and intriguing characters. Shannon is perfect for the role, morally absent when he needs to be, but a committed, loving father as well, and fully able to show these two sides of Roy’s character without any sense that he’s a Jekyll and Hyde personality and able to call on either side when necessary.

What’s also important is that Roy believes in Alton, albeit in a different way from Calvin (he and his followers believe that Alton’s rendezvous is also the time when they will all be judged by God). He believes in his son, wholeheartedly, and even if what he knows is incredibly far-fetched. If it wasn’t for the light that can stream from Alton’s eyes when he’s exposed to sunlight, the viewer would be hard pressed to believe in the same way as Roy does. Nichols doesn’t keep the viewer in the dark for long (no pun intended), and any doubts are dispelled when Elden (Jensen), the ex-Ranch member has to have “another look”. From then on, Alton’s gifts/abilities/powers are assimilated into the narrative in a way that both explores them and allows them to drive events forward. As the otherworldly Alton, Lieberher does a fantastic job of balancing his closeted childhood with his increasing awareness of the skills he really possesses (he reads a lot of comic books and at one point asks about Kryptonite as if it were real).

Nichols orchestrates all this with a tremendous amount of flair, even as he keeps a tight rein on the more overt sci-fi elements of his screenplay. The subplot involving the Ranch members sometimes comes across as more of an afterthought, or late addition to the script, while the inclusion of Sarah doesn’t give Dunst much more to do than look concerned and hesitant. And there’s one very important question that Nichols leaves right until the very final shot to explain (in many respects it’s the most important question). But with such a high level of confidence on display, Nichols can be forgiven a couple of narrative faux pas, and his handling of the action sequences is bracing and not at all derivative (a major feat in itself). The whole thing is beautifully shot by Nichols’ regular DoP Adam Stone, and there’s an insidious, disorientating score courtesy of another Nichols’ regular, David Wingo.

Rating: 8/10 – Nichols continues his run of impressive features with a movie that asks what it is to be human, and comes up with some unexpected answers in the process; Midnight Special is an intelligent, original, and supremely well executed sci-fi drama, as well as a fantastic example of what can be done with a well constructed script, a more than willing cast, inspired direction, and all on a modest budget.

With all the potential topics available to movie makers worldwide, and all the potential titles that could be used by movie makers, it does seem a little unfair on audiences when two movies are released relatively close to each other, and have the same title. Remakes are to be expected, but original movies? Surely, movie makers could check to see ahead of time if some other release is using the same title? And if so, to avoid any confusion, change theirs if they’re going to be second out of the gate? Well, with these two movies that obviously didn’t happen. But if anyone out there is reading this, and they have a movie coming out that has the same title as another recent release, please could you make it clear in the advertising that your movie isn’t the other one? Because that would definitely ensure that viewers don’t run the risk of being disappointed (as they would be in this instance).

A quiet motel, the Mountain View Lodge, is the setting for this adaptation of a section of a novel by Clay McLeod Chapman, a dark psychological thriller that deftly explores the mind of nine year old Ted Henley (Breeze), a boy with little to do other than clean the rooms and scoop up roadkill from outside the motel. Ted is a quiet child who misses his mother; she ran off with someone who stayed at the motel and is now living in Florida. His father, John (Morse), is a lonely, broken down man running a lonely, broken down motel, and both in their own way are still grieving the loss of Ted’s mother. John drinks too much, while Ted – who gets paid twenty-five cents for every roadkill he finds – begins to leave food on the main road so that animals will be attracted to it and run over. His aim is to amass enough money to leave and journey to Florida. And when his father mentions a deer being in the vicinity, Ted sees a chance to “make a killing”.

His plan goes slightly awry. The deer is hit by a car that ends up in need of repair, and the driver suffers a bad head injury. The man, named Colby (Wilson), ends up staying while he recuperates and his car is fixed. As the only other person there, Ted starts to gravitate towards him, and they strike up a friendship of sorts. When a couple and their son arrive and need an overnight stay, Ted fixes their car so that it won’t start the next morning. While they hang around another day, Ted and the son play together, but Ted’s lack of social awareness makes their play awkward for the other boy. When the family leaves, Ted reverts back to spending time with Colby, and he learns that the man has recently lost his wife in a fire.

But Ted’s interest in Colby is matched by the local Sheriff’s interest in him as well. Colby’s story about his wife may not be the whole truth, and a decision that Ted makes has terrible consequences, but not as terrible as the consequences when attendees at a local prom book the motel for their post-prom celebrations and treat Ted badly.

The Boy is often an uncomfortable viewing experience, but not for the reasons you may be thinking. Anyone watching the movie beyond its opening stretch will feel certain that what they’re watching is the slow accumulation of traits that will lead to Ted’s first foray into full-blown sociopathic behaviour. And for the most part, they’d be right. But while Ted is front and centre for most of the movie, Macneill pays close attention to the two fathers in Ted’s life during this time, and in doing so, also makes much of the atmosphere that inadvertently supports Ted’s inevitable “decline”.

John is unable to connect with his son, unable to realise just how much Ted is hurting over the loss of his mother. It’s likely he’s always been unable to connect with Ted; he mentions how time-consuming running the motel has always been. It’s therefore also likely that his father has been neglecting Ted for as long as Ted can remember (John inherited the motel from his father). With both parents absent from his life, one physically, the other emotionally, it’s no wonder that Ted has grown up with a different view on life than anyone else he knows (or meets). It’s also no wonder that he tries to strike up a relationship with Colby. Colby represents an opportunity for escape, but Colby has his own issues, issues that conflict with Ted’s needs. There is an inevitable confrontation, but while it’s a necessarily dramatic one, it pales before the conversation Colby has with John about what’s best for Ted. So much is said, and yet it’s what is left unsaid by the two men (and yet understood by them) that makes their conversation so important and so relevant. It’s the point in the movie when the viewer realises that Ted is lost forever.

As Ted, Breeze gives an astonishing, mesmerising performance. The movie’s effectiveness rests almost solely on his young shoulders, but he’s more than up to the challenge, portraying Ted with an eerie, absent intensity that is more chilling to see than any number of masked slashers. There’s a moment where he clutches a rabbit to his chest, and the vacant look on his face is so disconcerting it’s hard to know if the rabbit is safe or not. Kudos then to Macneill for his direction of Breeze, a major plus that could have gone horribly wrong, and a testament to both their individual skills. Elsewhere, Macneill maintains a palpable sense of impending, unavoidable dread, using the Colombian locations to excellent effect and playing up the unremitting remoteness of Ted’s childhood.

But while the bulk of The Boy is chilling and engrossing, it’s in the last thirty minutes that it takes an unfortunate stumble. The prom party are deliberately antagonistic and unsympathetic, and treat Ted harshly. Their behaviour, coupled with his father’s final act of neglect, pushes Ted to take much more determined, and deliberate steps on his road to becoming a full-blown sociopath. Macneill lets the sequence get away from him, prolonging an audio aspect of things way beyond what’s necessary, and tying things up rather too neatly, thereby negating the complex narrative structure he and original author Chapman have constructed up til then.

Rating: 8/10 – as an examination of nascent evil, The Boy is unsettling in its portrait of a nine year old’s unhealthy fascination with death; with superb performances from Morse and Wilson, and especially Breeze, Macneill’s movie is one that will linger long in the mind, and prove difficult to shift.

The boy in William Brent Bell’s inefficient chiller is actually a doll, and rather than have a fairly nondescript name like Ted Henley, goes by the unlikely moniker of Brahms Heelshire (pronounced Hillsher). Despite having perished in a fire twenty years ago, Brahms’ memory is kept alive by his parents (Norton, Hardcastle), who treat the doll as if Brahms were still alive. They “teach” him, play him music, read to him, set a place for him at meal times, and have set times when he “sleeps”. Into this bizarre situation comes American, Greta Evans (Cohan), to act as Brahms’ nanny while the Heelshires take their first trip away in twenty years. Before she’s even got halfway through the front door her shoes go missing, the first example of several mysterious occurrences that happen in the following days, and which lead her to believe that the doll is possessed by Brahms’ restless spirit.

As you might expect, The Boy is a silly attempt at a horror movie, and one that stretches credibility as often as it possibly can. In contrast to its titular “rival”, this movie lacks subtlety, a coherent script, competent direction, and halfway decent performances. It’s the kind of movie that looks as if it was offered to Hammer but they turned it down because it needed too much work to make it, well, work. As it is, we’re treated to interminable shots of the doll staring back at the camera, Greta exploring the Heelshires’ house and finding herself trapped at one point in the attic, the promise of Greta’s abusive boyfriend turning up just to be killed, and a twist that undoes everything – however superficial – that the movie has built up until then.

The performances are serviceable, though Norton and Hardcastle bring a level of competence to their roles that the movie doesn’t deserve. Otherwise there’s very little to recommend The Boy, only that it’s mercifully forgettable.

Rating: 3/10 – despite a level of expectation that the movie has no intention of following through on, The Boy is neither scary nor terrifying, and for the most part settles for risible; Cohan is wasted, and Evans struggles as a character who has no clear reason for being there except to look confused – much like the unlucky viewer who settles down to watch this thinking they’re going to watch a movie about a nine year old sociopath.

John le Carré has always been a good source for the movies. His stories are both entertaining and complex, and his characters, often as complex and deceptively drawn as le Carré’s plotting, are the kind that actors can have a veritable field day with. Our Kind of Traitor, with its criminal Russian oligarch seeking to defect to the West, is, on the page, a terrific blend of cat-and-mouse political manoeuvring and heightened thrills. By making his main character a naïve teacher (played here by Ewan McGregor), le Carré draws the reader/viewer in by using their lack of experience to muddy the waters further in terms of what’s going on. With luck, the more than competent cast, along with screenwriter Hossein Amini and director Susanna White, can pull off yet another movie adaptation of a le Carré novel that’s both compelling and engrossing, and the cinematic equivalent of a page-turner (just like its source).

Making his second directorial feature – after Bad Words (2013) – Jason Bateman brings yet another dysfunctional group to the big screen, The Family Fang. It’s also yet another indie comedy, with quirky characters and even quirkier situations, but this appears to have a better pedigree than most, being an adaptation of the novel by Kevin Wilson – though the script is courtesy of David Lindsay-Abaire, whose last screenplay was for Poltergeist (2015) (not a great recommendation when you think about it). Hopefully, the top-notch cast, including Bateman himself, Christopher Walken, Josh Pais, Kathryn Hahn, Michael Chernus, and Nicole Kidman (in a performance that will hopefully remind us just how good she can be after a slew of recent, underwhelming performances), have brought their A-game to the material, and this will be one movie that proves to be both memorable and funny in equal measure.

It’s directed by Steven Spielberg. It’s a children’s fantasy from the extraordinary mind of Roald Dahl. It’s The BFG. And it looks – on the evidence of the trailer – a lot like Pan (2015). But again, this is Spielberg at work here, and when it comes to spinning magic on the big screen, he’s in a league of his own. The BFG also features the final screenplay written by the late Melissa Mathison, whose last collaboration with Spielberg was a little movie called E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). And with recent Oscar-winner Mark Rylance playing the titular giant – his amazing voice tips you off before you even see the BFG’s face – it all looks to be in very good hands, even if – and this is just an instant reaction to seeing them – the other giants, Fleshlumpeater et al., all look like early character designs from Warcraft (2016).

You move to California from Chicago to start afresh. You try and put behind you the pain of a miscarriage. If you’re the husband you work hard and press for that promotion at work that you really deserve. If you’re the wife you stay at home and redesign the new home you’re living in, because interior design is what you do. And if you’re someone who used to know the husband years ago in high school then you suddenly show up out of the blue and start making things awkward.

Such is the basic set-up of Joel Edgerton’s first foray into feature directing – he also wrote the script – a dark, psychological thriller that asks that old chestnut once more: what do you do when your sins come back to haunt you? The sins in question belong to Simon Callum (Bateman). He’s smart, he’s determined, he’s likeable – in short, he’s too good to be true. And so it proves, with past behaviours having been retained twenty-five years on, and his moral centre somewhat askew. When Simon is approached by a man who claims to know him (but who he doesn’t recognise), his offhand, dismissive attitude is covered by a thin veneer of acceptance. But when a bottle of wine appears on Simon and his wife Robyn’s doorstep, with a note from the same man – whose name is Gordon Mosley (Edgerton) – Simon is made uncomfortable. And this being a thriller, the audience knows that Simon is going to feel a lot more uncomfortable before the movie’s conclusion.

But Edgerton the writer pulls a bit of a switch, and instead of having Gordon (known as Gordo) continue to make Simon’s life uncomfortable, the old high school classmate starts dropping in unexpectedly when Simon isn’t around. Robyn (Hall) is polite, and always invites him in, and even though she’s a little bit unnerved by his presence, she’s also sympathetic towards him, suspecting that his life hasn’t turned out as well as Simon’s has. She lets him set up their new TV, and increasingly seems pleased to see him when he visits. Simon is less than happy with this, and wants nothing more to do with Gordo, even though he can’t specify why.

An invitation to dinner at Gordo’s house doesn’t go well, however, and Simon uses the opportunity to end their renewed relationship. But when an incident at their house sends Simon back to Gordo’s home, he learns something alarming: it isn’t Gordo’s home at all, but belongs to someone he works for. The police become involved, briefly, but without any evidence of a crime committed against the Callums, they’re powerless to intervene. Later, Gordo sends an apology, but Simon is angry, while Robyn is more accepting. This is the beginning of a rift that will grow between them, but right then, Simon’s bid for promotion is going well, and he feels able to control everything that’s happening around them.

Of course, this proves foolish, as Gordo continues to manipulate their lives from afar. Robyn falls pregnant, and later learns some disturbing information about Simon and Gordo’s time in high school. She delves deeper, and what she finds out throws everything into sharp relief, and places her marriage in jeopardy. And all the while, Gordo hovers in the background, a shadow figure that may or may not be seeking justice for wrongs done to him in the past, or a malevolent force of the present, with undisclosed reasons for targetting Simon.

The Gift is a movie that tells its fairly straightforward tale with a small amount of visual flair, and a deeper understanding of untrammelled arrogance. Simon is a creep, something that’s made clear almost from the start, and his character is off-putting and insincere. It makes feeling sorry for him virtually impossible, and as the audience learns more and more about him, and his true colours shine through (however blackly), any potential sympathy is washed away in a tide of unhealthy revelations. Bateman makes the most of Simon’s more despicable justifications for his behaviour, and revels in playing the movie’s real bad guy, but it’s a role that doesn’t allow for much development or depth. And by the end, when the full extent of what’s been going on is revealed, the viewer’s main reaction is likely to be that of ennui rather than satisfaction.

As the harried, semi-stalked Robyn, Hall is her usual intelligent but emotionally removed self, peeling back the layers of Robyn’s past with more dexterity than Bateman is allowed to do, but ultimately falling short of showing us why Robyn is with Simon in the first place (or why she stays with him until events give her no choice). Hall is also let down by the script’s decision to introduce a drug problem for Robyn, and then have it resolved within fifteen minutes. Other subplots are either forgotten or abandoned, with the disappearance of the Callum’s dog, Mr Bojangles – potentially an occurrence that could ensure a great deal of suspense – again resolved far too quickly and far too easily. Likewise the matter of Gordo’s using his boss’s house; viewers may not be surprised by this development, but they might well be surprised at the way in which it’s not used to further the plot and is just abandoned along with so much else that acts as filler for the movie’s first half.

As the drama mutates uneasily into melodrama – Simon assaults Gordo and warns him off, Simon’s promotion suffers a serious setback – the tension increases, but Edgerton the director doesn’t have the experience to really make an audience sit on the edge of their seat or hold their breath in anxious anticipation. Some scenes fall flatter than a pancake, while others maintain a sense of unease that is undone by the use of too little light. There are a handful of dream sequences that seem out of place, but Edgerton integrates them with the narrative more effectively than some other (more experienced) directors would have done, but there’s still the lingering feeling that even though he’s done his homework, the writer/director/star could have done with a little bit of assistance in pulling it all together.

Rating: 6/10 – better than most psychological thrillers (but only just), The Gift should more accurately be called The Gifts, or even Several Gifts Left on a Doorstep; Edgerton does his best to explore notions of guilt and retribution but fails to fully engage with his audience, leading to a movie that promises a lot but only delivers a fraction of what’s needed to make it completely successful.

Rating: 4/10 – dreary, overlong, and lacking a coherent storyline, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is neither a DC Universe movie that works, or a superhero movie that gives viewers anything new; with too many short cuts in the narrative to help overcome its sluggish construction, the movie provides further evidence – if any were needed – Snyder should move on, David S. Goyer shouldn’t be an automatic choice for DC screenplays, and Henry Cavill is still so awfully po-faced as the son of Kal-El.

America’s National Football League, the NFL, until recently, would have had us believe that there is no correlation between severe head trauma and mental deterioration. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that if you’re hit in the head repeatedly over a long period of time, that it’s going to have a long-term effect; we’ve all seen too many punch-drunk boxers to disbelieve that one. But the NFL, despite apparently being aware of the dangers inherent in such a violent contact sport, did nothing about it. Players who developed mental health problems would often take their own lives, so overwhelming was their condition(s). And for years, no one outside the NFL knew anything about it.

And then in 2002, an unlikely “hero” appeared in the shape and form of Nigerian-born pathologist, Dr Bennet Omalu (Smith). While performing an autopsy on Pittsburgh Stealers legend Mike Webster, Omalu was unable to determine why Webster’s brain showed no signs of disease or damage, and yet his character and personality had changed to the extent that he was pulling out his own teeth and then supergluing them back in. Omalu conducted further research and tests on samples of Webster’s brain, and in doing so, discovered evidence of what he named CTE – Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Omalu realised that CTE was caused by the repeated blows to the head that football players experienced in every game, and that this something that needed to be brought to the attention of both the NFL and the public.

Omalu published his findings, and almost immediately the NFL began ridiculing his work and his theories (though within the medical profession it was regarded as an accurate representation of what was happening). Attacked on all sides, Omalu found an unexpected ally in the form of former Pittsburgh Stealers team doctor, Julian Bailes (Baldwin). He confirmed what Omalu was beginning to suspect: that the NFL were complicit in what was happening to a lot of former players. Omalu sought to open a dialogue with the NFL but they wanted nothing to do with him, and continued to criticise and rubbish his findings.

More former players died, usually from suicide. Omalu now had enough evidence to take to the NFL and prove his theory. But the NFL blindsided him, and when his boss (and friend), Dr Cyril Wecht (Brooks) was charged with multiple counts of fraud, Omalu was left with little room to manoeuvre. Unwilling to put his friends and colleagues in the line of fire, Omalu decided to quit and relocate to California with his wife, Prema (Mbatha-Raw). And then three years later, another ex-player killed himself, but this time, in such a way that not even the NFL could ignore. Now, Omalu had a chance to get his message across – but would the NFL listen?

Concussion is a small movie with a big message to pass on. That it does so intermittently, and with very little passion attached to it, makes for an uneasy ride as Omalu continually points out the obvious, and is then ignored for his temerity as a foreign national to be someone who doesn’t follow the game, or know who half the local players are. Various justifications are made on the game’s ruling body’s behalf, but the real question – why would you place such highly-paid, professional athletes in such a potentially harmful environment, and not do something to alert them to the risks they’re taking? – is never really answered.

Partly it’s because the focus is squarely on Bennet Omalu and his relationships with medicine and science and his faith (Omalu meets his future wife at church, where he’s asked to take her in as a favour to the parish). With the NFL refusing to engage with the issue unless forced to, the movie has to surmise much of the league’s reasoning, and this leads to awkward, melodramatic moments such as when ex-player and league bigwig Dave Duerson (Akinnuoye-Agbaje) confronts Omalu and dishes up a large plate of hostility and bile. The movie also marginalises a lot of the minor characters, from Dr Ron Hamilton (Moyer), who helped Omalu get the recognition he needed from other doctors and medical personnel, to Omalu’s own wife, Prema, who, one personal tragedy aside, appears to be there to remind audiences just how good a man Omalu is.

As the emabttled pathologist, Smith makes up for the soulless, joyless performance he gave in After Earth (2013) by making Omalu an earnest, justice-seeking missile of the truth. It is a better performance – by quite some margin – but it’s a relentlessly dour one as well, with Smith constantly frowning as if he’d lost something and couldn’t find it. Smith is a more than capable actor – see Ali (2001) if confirmation is needed – but here he’s let down by the movie’s pedestrian, made-for-home video tone, the connect-the-dots approach of the script, and Landesman’s unfocused direction. And there are too many scenes where the time to be passionate about the subject is given the equivalent of a hall pass.

The movie ends up being a lengthy one-sided examination of the head trauma issue as seen through the eyes of a moral evangelist – Omalu implores more than one person to “tell the truth”. But once Omalu has established that CTE exists and is a very real killer, the NFL’s intractability comes into play (no pun intended), and the audience is left waiting for a resolution that looks increasingly unlikely to happen. And yet, when it does, it lacks the impact required to have audiences cheering in their seats at seeing justice prevail. And as if to add to the dourness of Smith’s portrayal, the pre-end credits updates reveal the degree of inertia the issue has suffered since Omalu brought CTE to the public – and the NFL’s – attention.

Rating: 6/10 – anyone doubting the existence of CTE should look to Concussion‘s uncompromising approach to the subject and rethink accordingly; sadly though, as a movie, it lacks the crusading zeal that would have made the issue that much more exciting and/or gripping.

Once upon a time there were two sisters. One, Ravenna (Theron), lusted for power, and used her dark magic to take over kingdoms and rule them with an iron fist. The other, Freya (Blunt), had yet to find the magic gift she possessed, but Ravenna assured her the day would come when her power would assert itself. And then Freya fell pregnant, and had a baby. But then a tragedy occurred and her baby died in a fire, apparently caused by her baby’s father, her one true love. Her powers exerted themselves then, and Freya’s gift was to be able to control ice in all its forms. She exerted her revenge on her one true love, then left Ravenna’s care to make a kingdom for herself in the North. She became known as the Ice Queen, and she was feared by all.

Her pain found expression in a strange way. She would order the children from the villages in her kingdom to be rounded and trained as warriors for her growing army. All these children had to do was swear allegiance to her and foreswear any notion of love. In return she would give their lives meaning in their service to her. But love will out, and two children grew up to love each other, despite Freya’s law. Eric (Hemsworth) and Sarah (Chastain) made plans to leave Freya’s stronghold and their roles as huntsmen. But Freya learned of their plans and saw to it that they didn’t come to fruition. Eric saw Sarah killed, and he was knocked unconscious and thrown into the river to die.

But Eric survived. Time passed. Seven years, during which time he helped Snow White rid her kingdom of the villainous Ravenna. But now a new threat is in place. Ravenna’s mirror, a source of very powerful magic, has been stolen, and Eric is tasked with finding it and taking it to a sanctuary where it can be made safe. He agrees to the task, and is joined by two dwarves, Nion (Frost) and Gryff (Brydon). Soon they discover that Freya is trying to find the mirror as well. They seek help from two female dwarves, Mrs Bronwyn (Smith) and Doreena (Roach), and journey into a hidden forest inhabited by goblins to take back the mirror. But once they do they find themselves caught in a trap of Freya’s devising, leading to the mirror’s capture, and only one course of action left to them: to follow the Ice Queen back to her stronghold and destroy her and the mirror once and for all.

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) was an unexpected success, trading on Theron’s evil hearted queen and Kristen Stewart’s take on Snow White as a fantasy version of Joan of Arc. It had an impressive budget – $170 million – and made back nearly $400 million at the international box office. A sequel was always on the cards, it was just a matter of when. But here’s the rub: The Huntsman: Winter’s War isn’t just a sequel, it’s also a prequel. In it we see the Huntsman’s back story, his childhood years as a trainee in Freya’s huntsman army and his eventual love affair with Sarah, whom he marries in secret. When she dies, fate spares his life and the movie skims over the events of its predecessor with a single line of narrated dialogue (courtesy of Liam Neeson).

Then we’re fully in sequel mode, as Sam Claflin’s earnest prince convinces Eric to look for the mirror. And Freya, who has been adding nearby kingdoms to her own over the past seven years, gets wind of the mirror and its magical properties. A race against time, then, to see who reaches the mirror first. Alas, no, not really. Instead, after an eventful and encouraging first half hour, the movie settles down into fantasy adventure mode, with humour provided by Frost and Brydon. Freya’s threat is put on the back burner and Eric is confronted with a figure from his past who provides complications for his quest. It’s all serviceable enough, and despite everyone’s best efforts, all entirely forgettable.

The problem lies both with the script by Evan Spiliotopoulos and Craig Mazin, and Nicolas-Troyan’s direction. The script lumbers from one unconnected scene to the next, straining the audience’s patience thanks to semi-amusing quips and snide remarks courtesy of Brydon, cowardly assertions from Frost, an drab, wearing performance from Chastain, and Hemsworth’s assumption that a big grin can pass for acting when he so desires (sorry, Chris, it doesn’t). Ravenna remains the primary adversary, despite being off screen for two thirds of the movie, and Freya’s delusional take on love and its inability to offer true contentment is recounted so often it’s as if the makers weren’t sure an audience would grasp the idea the first time around.

But if the movie’s storyline and plotting are a cause for alarm, spare a thought for Nicolas-Troyan, bumped up from second unit director on the first movie, and a poor second choice after Frank Darabont, who was attached to the project for some time before he dropped out. He’s not so bad when it comes to the action sequences, but in between times, when the characters have to display their feelings, or the script calls for another bout of humorous insults (which are pretty much all of Brydon’s lines), his lack of experience shines through. Too many scenes fall flat or fail to make much of an impact, and the cast are left to inject whatever energy they can, but with the script and their director seemingly working against them, it’s an uphill struggle for all of them.

This being a big budget fantasy movie, however, it does score highly for its production design, its costumes, and its special effects (though an encounter with a goblin isn’t as effective as it should be, thanks to its looking like an angry ape with a liking for bling). The ice effects are cleverly done, and there’s a pleasing sense of a real world lurking behind all the CGI, while James Newton Howard contributes a suitably stirring score to help prop things up when it all gets a little too silly (which is most of the middle section). And of course, the makers can’t help themselves at the end, and leave a way open for a further (full-fledged) sequel. But if anyone really cares by that stage, then the movie will have truly worked its magic.

Rating: 5/10 – a superficially appealing prequel/sequel, The Huntsman: Winter’s War isn’t the most memorable of fantasy movies, and chances are, viewers will have forgotten most of its content a short while after seeing it; it’s not a bad movie per se, but then it’s not a good movie either, and sometimes, that’s the worst anyone can say about any movie.

Adapted by Patrick Marber from the novel by Zoë Heller, Notes on a Scandal should be sought out for three reasons: the acting masterclasses given by Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, a superb, unsettling score by Philip Glass, and the script itself, a beautifully constructed piece that delves into some very dark corners indeed, and which still allows itself the luxury of including a mordaunt sense of humour.

The story centres around two outwardly very different teachers in a London comprehensive school, St George’s. Dench is Barbara Covett, a history teacher who is approaching retirement. She’s never married, doesn’t have a significant other, is respected but not liked by the other teachers, and adopts a disdainful air that keeps everyone at a distance. Blanchett is Sheba Hart, a much younger art teacher who lacks Barbara’s experience and thick skin. She’s married to an older man, Richard (Nighy), and has two children, Polly (Temple) and Ben (Lewis). Sheba is the kind of teacher who often finds themselves out of their depth, and it’s on one such occasion that Barbara comes to her rescue.

Grateful to her, Sheba begins a friendship with Barbara that sees the older woman visiting Sheba’s home more and more often. Sheba effectively becomes Barbara’s protegé, although there is still a wide gulf between them, stemming mostly from Barbara’s dislike of Sheba’s middle-class lifestyle. One evening, Barbara waits for Sheba to attend a school drama performance, but Sheba is late. Barbara goes in search of her, and discovers Sheba having sex with a pupil, Steven Connolly (Simpson). Shocked, and feeling betrayed, Barbara confronts Sheba. The younger woman pleads with Barbara not to tell anyone. To Sheba’s surprise, Barbara has no intention of telling anyone – because they’re friends (though Barbara does insist Sheba end the affair immediately). Barbara sees her chance to become closer to Sheba, or destroy her if Sheba doesn’t agree to spending more time with her.

But Steven won’t be put off by Sheba’s pleas to stop the affair. He continues to see her, and Sheba allows their relationship to continue (though she keeps this a secret from Barbara). But it’s not long before Barbara discovers Sheba’s duplicity, and when she attempts to blackmail Sheba into spending time with her – to be with her at the expense of spending time with her family – Sheba has no choice but to put her family first. Angry and spiteful, Barbara seizes an opportunity presented to her by another teacher, Brian Bangs (Davis), and it’s not long before Steven’s mother is at Sheba’s house and the whole affair is revealed.

Richard leaves Sheba in order to have time to think about their relationship, and unable to face being in their home without him, asks Barbara if she can stay with her for a few days. Barbara quite naturally agrees, but a chance discovery leads to Sheba finding out the true extent of what their friendship means to Barbara, and how their relationship has been manipulated by Barbara from the beginning. With the future of her marriage looking uncertain, and facing jail because Steven is only fifteen, Sheba has no option but to confront Barbara over what the older woman has done.

Simply put, Notes on a Scandal is gripping stuff. Patrick Marber’s script hustles and bustles with undisguised hostility towards its two central characters, revealing their darkest traits and baser instincts with a scalpel-like precision that flays their more self-serving attributes to the metaphorical bone. Both Barbara and Sheba have their secrets, and both struggle to keep them hidden, but Marber won’t allow them any such luxury. As they interact with each other, lying and obscuring the truth about themselves, Barbara and Sheba become more and more unlikeable as the movie continues. Barbara’s domineering, manipulative demeanour is barely hidden at times, but she covers it well enough to fool Sheba, whose self-centred moral nihilism means she can’t see when someone has seen through her own carefully constructed façade.

The two women become involved in a one-sided battle, one-sided because Sheba doesn’t realise that Barbara wants nothing less than complete capitulation, and on her terms alone. Sheba is to be the sacrifice to Barbara’s vanity, another in a (conceivably) long line of hand maidens to Barbara’s idea of friendship. (The viewer may deduce that Barbara is a lesbian because of her intentions toward Sheba, but Marber’s script is too clever for that; instead, Barbara is more asexual than sexual, and is horrified at the suggestion – made by Sheba late on in the movie – that her motives lie in that direction.) Sheba, however, is very definitely a sexual creature, one who defines herself and her existence by the way in which she is found attractive and desired (once, after they’ve had sex, Steven tells Sheba she is “fit”, and Sheba positively glows under the praise). Both women are confused about love, Barbara seeing it as a kind of managed companionship, and Sheba as a validation of her sexual appeal. These confusions amount to huge fault lines in both their personalities, and when they eventually clash, the end result is force majeure.

As noted above, this is a movie that features two very impressive performances, and there’s not even a hair’s breadth between them in terms of how good they are. Dench is icy and abrupt as Barbara, calculating and insidious, a woman used to being respected (and feared even) and getting her own way. Dench doesn’t shy away from examining Barbara’s less savoury characteristics, using Marber’s script to highlight the way in which she expects everyone around her to fit in with her ideas and prejudices. Dench is also good at portraying Barbara’s emotional sterility through a succession of expertly judged expressions, all testifying to the void in both her heart and her feelings.

Blanchett has what feels like the more compelling, emotionally wrought role, but Sheba is a pleasure seeker, and can only justify her actions in ways that are meant to elicit sympathy for what she sees as her unexciting lifestyle. It’s interesting that she was one of Richard’s students when they first met (though she was twenty and not fifteen when he seduced her – or she seduced him; which it is we’re not told), and she does use this as an attempt to excuse her behaviour and the affair, but Richard quite rightly decries this, leaving Sheba unable to gain any sympathy or acceptance for what she’s done. Blanchett embraces the complex neediness that infuses Sheba’s personality and doesn’t shy away from portraying the character’s selfish obsessions and somewhat childish naïvete. Like Barbara, Sheba is used to getting what she wants; the only real difference between them is that Barbara has grown used to being on her own, whereas it’s a situation that scares Sheba unreasonably.

Acting as an extra layer of emotional intensity, Philip Glass’s insistent, urgent score ramps up the tension as the story unfolds. It acts as an unseen musical narrator, underscoring (if that’s an appropriate analogy) the drama as it heads towards a necessarily downbeat ending. Coordinating this and the performances of Dench and Blanchett, director Richard Eyre, along with DoP Chris Menges, uses his theatrical flair to keep the movie both visually and dramatically exciting, and he teases every nuance and vicious piece of brinkmanship out of Marber’s acerbic screenplay. With great supporting turns from Nighy, Davis and Simpson, as well as some equally adept editing by John Bloom and Antonia Van Drimmelen, this is an exceptionally well crafted movie that still stands out ten years after it was released.

Rating: 9/10 – with human frailty and arrogance brought to uncomfortable life by two of today’s finest actresses, Notes on a Scandal has enough positive attributes for two movies; richly detailed and endlessly fascinating, it’s a movie whose value is unlikely to deteriorate or become degraded by repeat viewings, and which remains a remarkable convergence of talent.

And so Jeanine is dead, killed by Four’s mother, Evelyn (Watts). Everything’s okay and peace has been restored. Except that Evelyn is making sure it comes at a further price: everyone who was on Erudite’s side has to be put on trial and their “crimes” answered for. This means executions on a wide scale, and although Tris (Woodley) has disowned her brother, Caleb (Elgort), he faces the same fate. With the message from outside Chicago still indicating that there are more answers to be found outside the city than in, Tris and Four (James) opt to breach the wall and go in search of those answers. Four decides to help Caleb escape, and the trio are joined by Christina (Kravitz), Tori (Maggie Q), and Peter (Teller). Despite an attempt to stop them by Evelyn’s lieutenant, Edgar (Weston), they climb over the wall and down to the other side.

There they find a toxic wasteland, where the earth is a scorch blasted red. Having been followed by Edgar, the group are relieved when they reach a force field that opens to reveal an armed force. This group protects Tris and her friends from Edgar, and with his threat neutralised, they take Tris and company to their base far out in the wasteland, the so-called Bureau of Genetic Welfare, where Tris in particular is welcomed by the Bureau’s director, David (Daniels). With Tris being the fruit of an experiment to right a wrong perpetrated long ago, David is keen to run tests on her, while keeping Four and the others occupied and away from her as much as possible. But Four is quick to suspect that David isn’t as honest as he makes out, but Tris doesn’t see it.

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Johanna (Spencer) has formed a group she calls Allegiant, and who are at odds with Evelyn’s way of running things. Another war of attrition is about to take place between the two factions, and though Tris wants David to intervene – after all, he has been monitoring Chicago for a long time because of the experiment – but instead of doing so, he sends Peter back with a nerve gas that will render everyone who comes into contact with it, unable to remember anything that happened to them before they were exposed. And while David takes Tris to meet the Council who ultimately decide everyone’s fate, Four discovers what the gas has been used for in the wasteland. And when Tris finally becomes aware of David’s duplicity, she and Four, along with Christina and Caleb, return to Chicago to stop Evelyn from using the gas on Allegiant.

Three movies in and the Divergent series is showing serious signs that it’s running out of ideas. Allegiant is superficially entertaining, but in comparison with parts one and two, it lacks anything fresh to entertain either fans or newcomers. It’s also the first time that the series gives up on Tris as an independent, strong-minded female, and instead hands over leadership duties to Four – which wouldn’t be such a bad idea if he wasn’t written as a bit of a pompous told-you-so kind of character. (Throughout the series, Four has been the gloomiest character of them all, unable to smile or express his feelings about anything without a frown.) And with Tris relegated to a secondary role, there’s only Daniels left to pick up the slack, as everyone else (James excepted) is afforded only enough screen time to either provide any relevant exposition, or keep the plot ticking over (Spencer and Watts are wasted, while Judd is brought back yet again to add some more of her character’s turgid back story).

The problem with the movie is twofold: one, it’s the first half of the third book in the series, and as such, doesn’t have a credible ending, just another narrowly avoided cliffhanger that leaves things open for part four (or should that be part three-point-five?); and two, the action seems more than usually contrived once Tris et al leave Chicago. The wasteland is less than threatening, and the Bureau is predictably shiny on the surface (and in David’s “office”), while the barracks Four and Christina are assigned to are remarkably similar to those inhabited by Dauntless in the first movie. It’s all brightly lit and commendably shot by esteemed DoP Florian Ballhaus (returning from Insurgent (2015) and already hired for the next instalment), but it’s becoming hard to care what happens to anyone.

At its heart, the Divergent series is about DNA profiling and the perils that can follow on from it. It’s a concept that’s been there in the first two movies, but which hasn’t been addressed directly. But now that it has, and through the medium of video no less, the truth behind the use of Chicago as a test ground, and the true meaning of being Divergent, all sounds quite dull and unexciting. The movie fails to make Tris’s nature important to its own story, and instead opts for being yet another race-against-time thriller, abandoning the ethical and moral debate it wants to engage in and relying on tried and trusted action movie clichés to wind up its narrative.

It’s no surprise that the movie has underperformed at the box office (leading to the final movie, Ascendant, due next year, having its budget cut), because even though Tris makes it out of Chicago, once she does, the movie doesn’t know what to do with her, and for a character as intriguing and interesting as Tris, that’s a terrible decision to make on any level. And it doesn’t help that your central villain is ultimately a harried bureaucrat, a futuristic pen-pusher if you will. That’s another stumble, and especially bad after having Kate Winslet fill the villain’s shoes for the first two movies. It all adds up to a movie that coasts on the success of its predecessors, and feels and looks like a stopgap before the real conclusion in part four.

Rating: 5/10 – another series instalment that will have newcomers wondering what all the fuss has been about, Allegiant is a movie that has little to offer in terms of its characters’ development, or in terms of expanding the wider narrative; Woodley – this series’ biggest asset – is sidelined for much of the movie, and though James is a competent enough actor, he doesn’t have his co-star’s presence on screen, which makes large chunks of the movie something of a chore to sit through.

Hands up anyone who’s heard of Declan Dale. Maybe you’ve seen his last movie. Well, actually, you couldn’t have because Declan Dale doesn’t exist, he’s the pseudonym of writer/director Gee Malik Linton, Exposed‘s director when it was called Daughter of God, and when it didn’t try to be two movies at the same time. Thanks to the intervention of distributor Lionsgate – who thought they were getting a gritty police drama starring Keanu Reeves – Linton’s stark, character-driven bi-lingual drama focusing on child abuse and violence towards women was emasculated, and the movie became a sluggish crime thriller instead (just watch the trailer below to see how determined Lionsgate were to make Exposed seem like an exciting, must-see thriller).

The result is astonishingly bad. In its current form, Exposed has the potential of being one of the year’s worst movies, a terrible disaster brought about, not by one of the production companies involved, but by a distributor who thought it knew better. In downplaying Isabel’s story in favour of Galban’s glum search for his partner’s killer, the less than competent folks at Lionsgate have made a potentially absorbing, surrealist drama into a muddled snoozefest that clumps along like an amputee getting used to a badly fitting prosthesis. Again, the result is astonishingly bad – really, seriously, completely, astonishingly, bad.

It’s hard to believe, but the movie’s editor, Melody London, has a great track record. She’s worked with Jim Jarmusch on movies such as Down by Law (1986) and Mystery Train (1989), and contributed greatly to the success of documentaries such as Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry (2004) and Apache 8 (2011). With that in mind, it’s hard to understand just how wretchedly Exposed has been stitched together, and just how deluded the “good” folks at Lionsgate were when they came to giving London their feedback on how to “improve” the movie’s chances at the box office. Because ultimately that was Lionsgate’s fear: that Linton’s original version, Daughter of God, would fail to make a dent at the box office. They were actively saying to Linton, this movie will sink without trace unless we intervene.

Well, hubris is a wonderful thing – except when it’s unfounded. Exposed has been released in eight countries at time of writing, and while exact figures aren’t available, the movie appears to have made only $205,703 worldwide (it made just $122 in the UK, while US returns haven’t even been revealed). If anyone at Lionsgate is still trying to say they did the right thing, then any production companies planning to let them distribute their latest feature, should turn around and run as far away as possible in the opposite direction.

So just how bad is Exposed? It’s astonishingly bad (but we’ve established that). Why is it so bad? Here are just three examples (there could have been more but this review has to end at some point): Detective Galban (Reeves) is allowed to investigate the death of his partner, Cullen, even though he’s still grieving over the loss of his wife; when it becomes clear that his partner was corrupt, Galban is warned off the investigation by his boss, Lieutenant Galway (McDonald), in order to avoid Cullen’s wife, Janine (Sorvino), losing out on his pension rights; and when Janine is informed that her husband’s death isn’t going to be investigated, she’s incensed – until the next scene where she attempts to seduce Galban while also admitting that Cullen was as crooked as everyone said.

What investigation there is – Janine insists her husband’s murderer is caught – depends on photos found on a camera at the murder scene. In them, there are several Latinos, including Manuel de La Cruz (Vargas) and his sister-in-law, Isabel (de Armas). Manuel seems to be focus of Cullen’s surveillance, and when the other people in the pictures start turning up dead, the main suspect in their deaths, and Cullen’s, is local crime boss Jonathan “Black” Jones (Kane). He denies any involvement but Galban is convinced he’s guilty. All Galban really knows for sure is that the girl in the photos is probably the key to everything. But Galban is such a terrible detective that he can’t even track her down, even though it should be easy.

Meanwhile, Isabel has problems of her own. On the night that Cullen was killed (and on the same subway platform) she has a vision: an albino man who walks on air above the tracks. With her husband away in Iraq, and living with her devout in-laws, Isabel’s faith is challenged when she begins seeing another strange being. She comes to believe that God has a plan for her, and that these beings she’s seeing are angels. But when her husband is killed and she later discovers that she’s pregnant, her in-laws disown her, despite her saying it’s a miracle (her husband was in Iraq for over a year). Ostracised, she turns her attention to a little girl, Elisa (Ariel), who appears to be suffering abuse at the hands of her father. This leads to a tragedy that reveals the reason for her pregnancy, and explains much of what happened the night that Cullen died.

In essence, there are two very different stories here, and they clash with each other at every turn. Galban’s investigation goes nowhere, partly because he’s apparently useless at his job (at one point he whinges that “nobody’s talking”), and partly because the revised storyline doesn’t know what to do with him. Reeves is a producer on the movie; one would have thought he would have more input into how the character is presented, but it’s soon obvious he either didn’t have as much clout as you’d expect, or he realised early on that, once Lionsgate got their hands on the movie, it was all over bar the crying. Either way, Reeves gives one of the most lethargic, barely involved performances of his career. For everyone who thought he’d turned his career slump around with John Wick (2014), think again. This and Knock Knock (2015) are clear indicators that John Wick was an unexpected blip on the radar.

de Armas has the better, more developed role, and she’s very effective in an emotionally confused, gamine kind of way, but as Isabel’s story takes her to some very dark places indeed, the actress’s performance is undervalued by the arbitrary twists and turns of Lionsgate’s re-edit. There are moments when the power of Linton’s original cut is able to shine through, notably in the sequences with the angels, and later as we realise just how fragile Isabel’s grip on reality really is. But there are long stretches where her story sits there like a stalled car, and as with Galban’s story, this version of her story doesn’t always know how to move forward without looking and feeling clumsy (and which it never comes close to overcoming).

At least there is some closure to Isabel’s story, even if it is rushed and overly melodramatic. Other characters come and go without the viewer even realising, and there’s a confrontation between Manuel and “Black” Jones that comes out of nowhere and then returns there as soon as it’s done. But by the time this encounter pops up the average viewer will be checking their watch and wondering just how longer this farrago has got to go. There are just so many wretchedly glum and dispiriting scenes that have come before, suspended moments that lack resonance or emotion, for anyone to really care how it all turns out. And when it finally does, the only reaction left to the viewer who’s got that far is relief.

Rating: 3/10 – a spectacular misfire of a movie, Exposed is so bad that William Goldman’s classic quote, “In Hollywood, nobody knows anything”, should have the qualifier, “especially Lionsgate” added to it; let’s hope that Linton’s original cut eventually sees the light of day, and this dull, leaden, dreary mess can be consigned to the cinematic landfill where it belongs.

Originally filmed in 2012, Free the Nipple occupies a curious place in both movie history and the history of feminist activism. Made to highlight the lack of conformity in the US when it comes to a woman appearing topless in public – some states have legalised it, many more haven’t – the movie failed to attract a distributor, and it seemed it would never be released, even to the home market. In order to combat this, the movie’s director and star, Lina Esco, started the movement that can be seen in the movie itself, and with the real life campaign gaining enough publicity, Free the Nipple eventually secured a release date towards the end of 2014 (and is now available to own).

It must be an odd situation for a movie maker to find themselves in: in order to get their movie noticed, they’ve got to orchestrate the very movement their movie is depicting. Is it life imitating art, or art defining life? Either way, Esco should be congratulated for not giving up on her movie, because even though it’s an uneven mix of female empowerment, feminist polemic and relationship drama, the movie has a great deal of charm, and a great deal of low budget energy.

Esco plays With, a journalist whose friendship with Liv (Kirke) leads to her writing an article on Liv’s views that society discriminates against women by allowing men to go bare chested in public without being challenged, whereas if a woman does it she’s likely to be arrested for indecency. But With’s article is dismissed, and she loses her job. Liv is secretly pleased: now With can devote her energies full time to challenging the law over public nudity. But With is initially hesitant, not knowing where to begin, but she seeks help from her friend Orson (Newman), and her mentor Jim (Grenier), and soon she and Liv are interviewing women who are prepared to support their efforts in gaining attention to the issue, and being a part of an organisation that is dedicated to “free the nipple”.

Of course, there are obstacles along the way, financial ones and personal ones, and when Liv is arrested, but With refuses to give up, partly out of loyalty to the cause, partly out of guilt surrounding Liv’s arrest and subsequent detention pending bail. In-fighting in the group also takes its toll, but throughout all the drama and the setbacks and the struggle to organise a rally in Washington D.C. featuring a hundred thousand topless women, the issue of gender equality is maintained at the forefront of what With and Liv are trying to achieve.

As mentioned above, Free the Nipple has a great deal of charm, and its indie vibe is a welcome approach, but while it’s a likeable movie that has much to say about the issue of gender equality, not all the elements fit so well together. Too often, Hunter Richards’ script opts for downplaying the difficulties of kickstarting a politically motivated movement – With et al are always broke, unable to get permits, ignored by the media – but they always come through, and while the mechanisms that keep them going don’t have to be seen in detail, an acknowledgment as to how they’ve managed it would have made quite a difference. As it is, each crisis that comes along appears easily dealt with, leaving the inherent drama feeling trivial and under-developed.

There’s also something of a romantic subplot involving Liv’s obvious attraction to With. Esco the director serves up several lingering shots of Liv looking at With longingly, and even has Esco the actress returning said looks with a degree of emotional uncertainty from time to time, but the script offers no resolution or definitive outcome. It’s almost as if, with all the other gender issues the movie is doing its best to address, that the idea of a same sex relationship being added to the mix was perhaps one “issue” too many. It’s a shame, as the concept of love borne out of political activism isn’t one that cinema tackles very often.

The movie also downplays the contributions of the secondary characters, preferring to focus on With and Liv. As a result, most of these characters remain overshadowed throughout, with only LeBow (as the perpetually doubting Cali) and Grenier making much of an impact. Esco gives a spirited, invigorating performance, balancing With’s sense of injustice with her all too reasonable self-doubts, though With’s initial reluctance to go topless herself seems more of a clumsy storyline device than a real piece of character motivation. Kirke, meanwhile, cements her rising reputation as an actress to watch, with a portrayal of Liv that combines vulnerability, emotional longing, an impetuous nature, and enough quirky behaviour to make her immensely likeable at first meeting (even if she is a little naïve as well). And there are some lovely moments when Liv’s need to be a follower rather than a leader are expressed with just the right amount of insecurity and unspoken pliancy.

Elsewhere, the political elements hold sway, but while these are the movie’s main focus, sometimes it gets itself caught up in its own rhetoric. One minor character is heard to say that revolution isn’t the right word for what is happening; instead it should be an evolution. Unfortunately the script, and Esco’s direction, doesn’t make it clear if this is meant to be satirical or not, so the viewer is left with the uneasy feeling that the character is being serious. The movie also makes more of the movement’s “struggle” than it needs to. There are times when their cause is regarded – by its followers at least – as world-changing, even though most countries already have a relaxed approach to women going topless (legally or otherwise), and the which is worse argument, violence or sexual imagery, is trotted out as if it was the only argument needed to settle the debate (though to be fair, there’s very little debate involved; the Girlrillaz, as they’re dubbed, organise their rally quite easily in the end, and other groups in other countries follow suit, and there you have it).

For a movie that espouses the freedom to go topless in public, Free the Nipple does evidence some confusion over whether to show the “offending” objects or not. Early on, and at different times in the movie, women seen going about New York with their breasts exposed have them pixellated. It’s only when Kirke and Esco go topless later in the movie that the pixels are (mostly) abandoned for good. If there’s any kind of message here then it seems to have been lost in the editing stage because there doesn’t appear to be any reason for it. And while Esco the director eventually does as the title suggests, there’s lot of occasions where her framing and shot choices still leave any exposure struggling to be just that. This leaves the movie looking like somewhat of a tease in certain scenes (which Esco is unlikely to have intended), whereas if the viewer had been confronted with bare breasts from the start, their very matter-of-factness may well have achieved exactly what the movement wanted in the first place: for no one to be bothered by the sight of a free nipple.

Rating: 6/10 – though it struggles from time to time in telling its story with a clear sense of purpose, Free the Nipple is nevertheless an enjoyable, if disappointing, look at how distorted our view of the female form has become over the years; when it’s able to overcome its more zealous moments, the movie has some pertinent things to say about sexist attitudes in general, but they’re not always easy to find amongst all the distractions provided by the script.